This is my first fan fiction so be gentle
I decided to open this story with the life of the Romanian Prince Vlad Dracula because I wanted readers to clearly understand the life of the famous creature of the night. You, on the other hand, might find it irrevalent. But I don't blame you. It's my first time doing something like this.
Chapter1
Vlad was the illegitimate grandson of Basarab the Great, a 14th century prince who founded the state of Wallachia, part of the eastern European country of Romania. His son Mircea cel Batrin (Mircea the Old) was a Wallachian "viovode" (Slavic meaning war-lord or supreme chief) who was prominent for his struggles against the Ottoman Empire and his attempts to exclude permanent settlements of Turks on Wallachian lands. Mircea died in 1418, leaving behind a number of illegitimate children, among them Vlad himself. In 1431 Vlad became military commander in Sighioara, a town that lied within the Romanian region of Transylvania. Vlad received a unique honour in the Order of the Dragon, an institution created by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and his queen Barbara Cilli. Vlad duties in the Order of the Dragon was to protect the royal family of the Holy Roman Empire, defend Christianity and battle against its, primarily the Turks.
It is in the Order that Vlad took the nickname Dracul (Wallachian word derived from the Latin word "draco" meaning "the dragon"). It was in that same year that Vlad was born unto him.
Young Vlad took the nickname Dracula (meaning "son of Dracul" or "son of the Dragon"). Dracula had two brothers; among them was Radu. Vlad and Radu were imprisoned in Turkey for six years by Sultan Murad to ensure their father's active support in Turkish interests. The two brothers were subsequently released in 1448, but Radu chose to stay in Turkey. Vlad returned to Wallachia only to discover that his father had been assassinated and that his older brother Mircea had been buried alive by the nobles of Targoviste who had been supporters of a rival element. Vlad was viovode for three separate periods, totalling about seven years. In the first period in 1448 his rule was short-lived, however he spent the next eight years plotting his return to power. In 1456 he was finally successful and ruled for the next six years. Though Vlad's reign would last no more than six years his reputation throughout Europe was widespread. He was seen both as a cruel, psychopathic tyrant and as a hero who put the needs of his country above all else.
Vlad Dracula was seen as a significant figure in Romanian history. He was one of the number of viovodes who contributed to the building of a strong independent Wallachian state. He stood up against the powerful nobles and assured law and order in what were lawless times. Most notably he was remembered for standing up against the Ottoman Empire, at a time when other principalities around him were falling under Turkish control. He was perceived as a David facing a Goliath. In 1462 Vlad launched a military campaign against the Turks. It was quite risky, the force of Sultan Mehmed II being far more powerful than Dracula's ragtag Valahian army. However, during the winter of 1462, Vlad managed to gain many victories. Vlad was forced to retreat towards Tirgoviste when he could not find allies when the Sultan launched a full-scale invasion of Valahia. During his retreat, Vlad burned his own villages and poisoned wells so that Turkish army could not find anything to eat or drink while they occupied the land. Exhausted, Sultan Mehmed was forced to admit defeat when he was met by the gruesome sight of 20,000 Turkish captives impaled on tall wooden stakes when he and his forces reached the capital. The sight was the hallmark of Vlad Dracula who would be widely known as Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler).
Vlad was most known for his unspeakable cruelty. The first act he committed when he ascended to the throne of Wallachia was the arrest of the boyar families who he blamed for his father's death. He ordered them to march fifty miles to the town of Poenari and forced them to hard labour to build what may become known as Castle Dracul. Vlad completed the revenge by having each and everyone of the boyars, man, woman and child alike to be impaled. Impalement was a method of torture that was an often slow and painful way of dying. Vlad had a horse attached to the victim's legs and a large sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake was not too sharp, lest the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Victims were often impaled from the buttocks through the mouth and in some cases through the abdomen and the chest. Babies were impaled together with their mothers through the breast and other victims were impaled upside down.
Impalement was Vlad's favourite method of torture, but by all means not his only method. Nails were driven into heads, victims were boiled, blinded, skinned and hanged. Vlad had once gathered up three hundred gypsies who came to his country, chose the best three of them and had them roasted, leaving their rotting bodies for the others to eat. On St Bartholomew's Day, Dracula suspected the Germans (Saxons) in Transylvania of supporting a rival, so he had all of them in both sexes piled up and decapitated. It was rumoured that Dracula had eaten bread dipped in the blood of his victims. Vlad's cruelty was driven by paranoia and hate of evil through his Christian upbringing and also to insert his position in Wallachia. His enemies were unable to vanquish him and thousands of enemies and innocents died by his hands in what he believed was justice.
Vlad was eventually driven out of power by Sultan Mehmed II when Mehmed threw his support behind Vlad's brother Radu and defecting boyars. Vlad fled to Hungary were he was arrested by the new Hungarian king Mattius Corvinus. This is where Vlad met a beautiful, soft-spoken, dark-haired, green-eyed woman named Elisabetha. Vlad and Elisabetha were then married and Vlad converted to Catholicism at his wife's behest. More of a factor of his conversion was a deal with Matthius, who was under pressure from the Pope and other Catholic leaders who realised Vlad's importance as leader under this condition. Matthius finally agreed to release Vlad. Upon his release, a small army of loyal Transylvanians, Moldavians and Wallachians under the order of their prince, Stephen Bathory, helped Vlad again force his way into total power of Wallachia.
Vlad getting himself prepared for a battle against the Turks during the Christian Crusades. On the eve of the battle, after he received blessings from his priests, his wife Elisabetha begged him not to go. But having his eyes fixed on returning to power, he did not listen to her. Vlad and his army engaged with the Turks. This battle was hard and bloody but Vlad emerged victorious. The hard fought battle would later lead to rumours of his death. When Vlad had not returned in three days a group of Turkish soldiers shot an arrow through Elisabetha's window. On the arrow was strapped a message that her husband had died in battle. Overcome with anguish, Elisabetha threw herself from her high window falling to her death below. Vlad returned only to find priests and other bearing the corpse of his wife. They told him what had happened and added that he would not met her in heaven for her soul was damned. Elisabetha's untimely death destroyed Vlad's spirit and he eventually denounced God, the same God he praised with all his heart from his childhood to his victories on the field of battle. His army continued to dissipate, and he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for his devious acts. Vlad went mad and his thirst for blood saw him become even more insane. Shortly after the most devastating counterattack by the Turks, Vlad's waning spirits began to affect his health and he became deathly ill. His pain ended in the winter months of 1476 when he was assassinated. It was rumoured that the Boyard families acted out their revenge upon Vlad, but others believed it was the Turks who finally got their man. Months before his death Vlad launched a vengeful assault on the Turks which was an emotional response to the loss of his wife.
Vlad was buried near the Snagov Monastery, but even in death there was a price on his head. His enemies offered rewards to any of those who could bring his corpse to them and thus prove his death was anything but a rumour. Before his burial, the Turks decapitated Vlad's corpse and sent his head to Constantinople, where the sultan displayed it as a symbol of the tyrant's death. From that moment on Vlad's body could not be found as no one could locate the precise point of burial. Finally, three years after his death, the very coffin that housed Vlad's body was found by a group of grave keepers. When they opened it they discovered that it was empty! This is where the next chapter of Vlad Dracula's begins.