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It took some time to be free of the dark, twisting maze of chambers, tunnels, and passageways of the now devastated city of the Razielim. But Raziel led the way unerringly until they emerged out of a doorway which had been built into what appeared from the outside to be a stone coffin set against a wall. The false back of the coffin was a door on a mechanism which had been remarkably well-preserved considering how long it had gone without use.
Raziel dismissed the wraith blade, leaving them in near total darkness. Stepping out of the hidden entrance, the blue wraith paused, listening in the shadows for a long moment before venturing out step by slow step into the chamber beyond. The room was oddly narrow, but also long, lined with a series of elaborately carved sarcophagi along each fake one which hid the passageway to underneath the city proper was indistinguishable amongst the others.
Kain held out his hand to summon a ball of magical light but Raziel, perhaps hearing him move or simply knowing him that well even after everything, reached back and took hold of his arm.
"No." He said softly, his eyes faintly luminous in the dark. "Not until we know whether we're alone or not."
Kain hesitated at that, glancing up and down the length of the narrow chamber, before lowering his arm and nodding. Raziel released him and started down the empty catacomb, methodically going from sarcophagus to sarcophagus, peering into each one. He even went so far as to remove the lid of a closed one to check inside before replacing it. It was slow going, but he searched everything before coming to a pitted steel door at the far end. It seemed this entire journey had taught his admittedly impulsive firstborn a bit of caution.
After listening there for a moment, the blue wraith put his weight against it and heaved. The door gave way with only a moderate squeak of its hinges. By the carved stone pillars to either side of the revealed archway beyond, Kain could see the chamber they just passed through had been a mausoleum. The faint light from outside highlighted the stone caskets in greater detail, revealing their carved lids which each bore the likeness of a Vampire with exposed fangs and their arms crossed over the chest, noble in their last, eternal rest.
Beyond was the wide expanse of a ridge which overlooked a ravine outlined by many buildings. Some were tall, some were squat. Most were square, but there were a few round domes to interrupt the pattern here and there. All were made out of the same dull stone which once upon a time would have been shining white but now, with the passage of the ages, was a dull, mossy green. The visage of tombs stretched off as far as the eye could see in either direction, an unbroken line of sealed crypts and mausoleums and, hanging here and there in dirty tatters, were the frayed banners of clan Melchahim.
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"The Necropolis, the ancient, sprawling tombs of the honoured Imperial dead. Those Vampires who had fallen and could not be raised again were placed here to be enshrined for their commitment to their duty. Even Humans who had submitted to Imperial rule and served their masters with distinction had had the option of being put to rest here. But when the clans began their descent into animalistic tribalism, the Melchahim had plundered the dead here for fresh corpses to raise as replacement fledglings. For centuries it had been a breeding ground of debased ghouls. Now, all was still. A graveyard in every sense of the word."
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Kain glanced back up behind him. Looming above was a vertical cliff of perhaps some hundred feet, upon which the yet burning ruins of the Razielim city smoldered. Smoke was rising high into the air and blanketing the mausoleum in far darker shadows than would be normal for this time of day, were normal a word that applied to much any longer. Everything had a strange, unearthly quality to it, the fire above leaving a cloying charcoal taste on the tongue no matter it was far above them. But most importantly, that was all that came from above. Either they had evaded the Dragon, or Thanatos was still curled up somewhere trying to clear his throat of shrapnel.
Raziel, meanwhile, was perched on the edge of the ridge, gazing along the deep, narrow street of tombs back and forth like a predatory hawk. His ruined wings dangled over the edge, for once utterly limp in the dead air. Ajatar had come up alongside him, her yet tender wing tucked tightly to her side and the other half fanned out, flapping occasionally with a faint rustle. Both of them looked knocked about and battle worn. Ajatar's red toga was torn in several places and her skin was scuffed and bloody across her knees and thighs. Raziel's slender body was covered in grime and he seemed to droop, as though the sustaining energy he used to maintain himself was running low.
"Nothing." The wraith finally said to break the silence. "They're gone." He stood up, his ruined wings moving as he did only to fall still once more.
"All of them?" Kain asked warily, walking up beside them and gazing down himself. The floor of the ravine was a drop of another fifty feet straight down the side of an elaborate tomb with carved figures holding up a buttress.
"All I can say is that I sense nothing." Raziel stated flatly. Kain grunted and folded his arms over his chest.
"Hardly the most reassuring of assessments." He muttered, glancing left and right along the ravine itself. It curved inward either side so that both ends were out of sight behind towering pillars of stone. Everything was indeed very quiet here. The only sounds to break the silence were the cracklings of the flames and their own breathing.
"We're still too close to the city for my liking." The Vampire muttered, tapping his chin with a talon. "We need somewhere we can stop and make a new plan."
They had no set destination for the scattered groups to reconvene. There was no single location in Nosgoth that would hide or shield all of them from the Divus and their overwhelming military force. There were, however, a few places that might be likely destinations for the others to attempt to reach and they needed to take the time to reason out which should be their own end goal.
Raziel narrowed his eyes and raised his head, gazing out across the peaked rooftops of the tombs all about him. After a moment he raised a hand and pointed to the far distance where a roof rather like a pyramid was rising above the others, barely visible in the black twilight all about them.
"The charnel house where Melchiah made his lair isn't far. If it's free of denizens it might serve." He said. Kain grimaced slightly. While certainly not squeamish in any sense of the word, Melchiah's lair had been a place of ghoulish perversion where the skins of victims were hung and prepared like tanned leather. It had been a degraded, filthy pit where suffering was assured for Human and Vampire alike. However, he could not deny the logic which had made Raziel choose it. If nothing else, the Divus would like as not never think to look for them in there.
"If it's not free now it soon will be. Very well." He said, although unable to help a certain grim reluctancy creeping into his tone.
It did not take them long to reach the bottom of the ravine, scaling the sides of the tombs and leaping from narrow ledges. The floor of the street of tombs was made of the same tarnished green stone and was stained black in several places where the smell of spilled blood yet lingered, even after so long. Ancient bones were still here, blown into corners by the wind and caked in gathered dust. Kain took point this time, guiding them along the street and keeping to the shadows as best as possible. They certainly did not want to be visible from the air.
Signs of the ravaging Melchahim ghouls were everywhere. Each crypt they passed had been pried open, their doors either ajar or hanging loose off their hinges. As they had degraded both physically and mentally, the Melchahim had resorted to raiding the tombs of fallen Vampires in order to recruit new fledglings. Reanimating a Vampire's corpse as a fresh, new Vampire was not a process to be undertaken by any with a modicum of self-respect and was difficult to accomplish, but it was possible.
By now, however, the Melchahim, already a clan in decline, had lost their patriarch and with it their organising intelligence and coordination. Divided, decaying, and leaderless, the Melchahim had been easy to hunt down for the expanding Vampire hunters, or to be overtaken by other stronger Vampires. Whether they, like the Razielim, were now totally extinct was unknown, but at best there could be no more than a handful of survivors now. The defiled state of this once sanctified place of eternal rest was a standing testament to their clan's final ignoble existence.
"It might be best if we attempt to rendezvous with the Hylden first." Ajatar said quietly with her voice making no echo through the narrow space, glancing back the way they had come for a moment. "They might travel back to more familiar territory, nearer Avernus. Perhaps by a northern route."
Kain half turned at her statement and paused, giving her a long look. He took her in right then and there, every aspect of her. She was worn down, battle grim, and still weak from injury. But her eyes seemed to burn still with emotion bubbling just beneath the surface, full of indignant fury and an unfocused longing. At her side was the golden axe he had given her, retrieved from the murderer Puriel. She was resting one hand on its hilt rather than her two short swords.
Kain frowned deeply. He had hoped he wouldn't have to say anything, but clearly he was going to have to intervene. He stopped still in his tracks to bring their group to a halt. Ajatar reared back slightly, confused by the sudden stop.
"Ajatar, I wonder at you for even making such a suggestion." The would-be Emperor of Nosgoth began in a very harsh voice. Reaching back over his shoulder he drew the Reaver, making his two companions look at him warily. But Kain did not brandish the weapon at them. Instead he placed its point down on the ground and rested his hands on the pommel, giving him a distinctly formal appearance. The stance he took, looking down upon her with firm judgement in his eyes was not lost on Ajatar.
"M..my lord?" She asked, straightening, eyes wide in confusion.
"You suggest we step into the midst of a people who might be allied with us for the moment, but by no means are our friends. Hardly a sound strategic move to guarantee our safety. I might even call it foolhardy." He told her and had the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. He held her gaze for a long moment before finally coming to the point. "And I suspect an ulterior motive for your wanting to rendezvous with them."
Ajatar drew in a sharp breath and held it, her lips pressed together and eyes wide as she took his meaning. Kain watched her reaction and grimly took it as the final proof he needed for his assessment of the situation.
"Many of us have those we wish to reassure and console. You are no exception. Perhaps even the best example." He said.
"My lord, I…" The Serioli Grandmaster started, a thousand excuses and explanations piling into her mouth and colliding on her tongue. Kain snarled, baring his fangs, instantly silencing her before another word could be spoken.
"Do not play the fool with me, Ajatar!" He snapped harshly. Her face visibly paled and she went quiet, staring. After a pause, though, Kain smiled again with some wry amusement. "Although I suppose I must congratulate you. You may be the first Vampire in the history of our entire species to be kissed by a Hylden."
Raziel blinked at this intelligence. "She was what?"
Ajatar was flushed and both of her wings were rustling their feathers in their characteristic way behind her. Even her injured one was twitching about in what could only be called acute embarrassment.
"That...was just unexpected." She mumbled in a voice which wavered noticeably. "It was a tense moment, that's all!"
"'Tense' is not the word I would use…" Kain muttered and then drew himself up imperiously. "I know not what passes between the two of you, nor do I really care. But I would make plain to you that such things are not to affect your judgement, especially in regards to any suggestions you care to make to me."
"Lord Kain, I would never..!"
"You jeopardized yourself and others in an emotional outburst and now you are allowing your own desires, consciously or not, to corrupt your judgement." He overode her objection swiftly. His words seemed to cut her forcefully and she stood there rigidly. "Look me in the eye and tell me I am wrong." She didn't. She couldn't, because it was true and they both knew it in that grim moment. "Professionalism, Ajatar. I thought at the very least that was something I could expect from you. Given your recent performance I am given to wonder."
Ajatar stood there silently, arms tense at her sides before her head hung in shame and she lowered her gaze from him.
"I beg your forgiveness, my lord. It won't happen again." She said in a voice which was full of palpable self-recrimination. Kain grunted and slid the Reaver back into position over his shoulder.
"Then we have nothing further to discuss on the matter." He stated firmly and without another word turned about and started off, re-assuming the trek as though nothing had happened. The other two were left to catch up with him after they had taken a moment to assimilate that awkward confrontation.
The street opened out into a larger square after a short while, a flat, open space with long Melchahim banners hanging from rusty poles crudely set, jutting out from irregular points. A flight of greenish stone stairs rose up on the far side, snaking through the tombs on either side towards the pyramid which was much closer by now. Two opposing gates were set to either side of the pyramid, barred shut with large iron bolts holding them in place. The gloom all about them made the far end of the square indistinct and hazy, even though it could not be more than fifty feet away.
Ajatar moved forward to scout ahead without so much as saying a word. With the golden axe in one hand and the less damaged of her swords in the other, she moved out to peer around the square, checking various tombs for signs of activity. Her attitude was one of patient, steady practicality, and she seemed entirely focused on her immediate task. Kain smiled faintly to himself at seeing her change in demeanor. It seemed she had taken his words to heart.
"That was harsh." Raziel observed softly from behind him. Kain's smile vanished and he half turned to find the blue wraith regarding him with an infuriatingly judgemental look in his eyes.
"My people need to be at their best, Raziel. I will accept nothing less." He replied in a soft voice that he did not want to carry, returning the look with an unfriendly stare. "Nor did I invite commentary on how I choose to discipline my subordinates."
Raziel cocked his head to one side and folded his arms over his emaciated chest, one eyebrow raised up.
"I used to be one of your subordinates, Kain, and thus I feel myself uniquely qualified to give commentary when commentary is needed. And I'll give it whenever I damn well please." He said. Kain's answering expression was far from impressed.
"And just what witty observation are you inclined to make?" He asked irritably. Raziel leaned back against a grimey green wall, one foot resting upon the toes of the other.
"As you said, Kain, we all have something we need to hold on to here. Someone for whom we feel the need to carry on." The blue wraith said, narrowing one eye. "And we all have someone for whom all other considerations fall aside, even in the face of logic."
Kain was no fool and could see exactly where Raziel was going with this.
"Umah does not command or distract me." He cut in swiftly, his expression tight. Raziel tilted his head back and let out a short bark of laughter.
"HA! If Umah wished, I think she could get you to do just about anything!" His voice carried across the square and Ajatar paused to glance back at them. Kain's answering expression of profound disapproval made her quickly return to her duty. "The way she struts and circles about you, confident and sure like a shark around its prey, is proof enough of that."
"I killed her once before for betraying me." The would-be Emperor of Nosgoth replied with flat scorn, a frown creasing his face. Raziel wagged a talon back at him.
"And that is the source of her hold over you." He said. "I never quite understood your restraint on the matter during the time I served you and the empire, but now it is all clear to me." His blue body leaned forward almost insolently. "Damning the world to a slow decay, conquering and enslaving the land, using others as elaborate pawn pieces, even casting me into the abyss; that's all easy to rationalise and explain away as necessary for the greater good. But taking away her life? The one being who you might have shared eternity with? It's the one rash act of your youth that even you can't quite forgive yourself for. You feel guilty, and it's that guilt which has helped shape you into the being you are today. Her death by your hand helped forge you. It was the catalyst for your entire personality as a Vampire."
Kain opened his mouth but the words of angry denial he had half-formed seemed to die right as his tongue was on the verge of shaping them. He wanted to deny it. He wanted vehemently to deny it. But he couldn't.
"So perhaps instead of criticizing others for their lack of focus, you might do well to practise what you preach." Raziel finished, a parting, teasing remark that left Kain clenching a fist by his side.
"Why, you blue little…" He started with bared fangs.
It was only a small flicker of movement which caught his eye, the shifting of something far back down the narrow street of tombs they had traversed. Kain was not even sure what he had glimpsed, only that he could have sworn that one moment a shadow cast by a pillar of masonry had been there and the next it had not. The movement had been so slight that had his eye not glanced for an instant in that exact spot, he would have missed it completely. His sudden silence and puzzled frown caught Raziel's attention and he turned to follow Kain's line of sight.
"Kain?" He asked, looking about with equal confusion. "Kain, what is it?"
Kain remained silent for a long moment, his eyes slowly scanning the expanse of twisted, dark tombs for any further sign of movement. It was hard to see through the gloom of the falling soot, but Kain had a distinct and powerful sense of a lurking presence. But as time passed and no other movement revealed itself he pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head.
"Nothing..." He replied.
"You're certain?" Raziel asked again quickly, giving Kain a look.
"No."
The two of them stood there for a moment more before, acting on impulse, Kain pulled quickly into the side of a crypt's doorway and pressed his back firmly against an inside wall where he could not be seen from the outside.
"Quickly, through here." He said in a hushed voice. Raziel obeyed and the two of them waited there, hidden from view but able to see right down the narrow street of crypts through a narrow gap between a carved stone pillar and the doorway it was supporting.
They did not have to wait long. Sure enough, as soon as the two of them were out of sight, the shadows in amongst the gloom began to stir. Dark shapes slid from up against solid walls, oozing over firm surfaces like a spreading fungus or a cascade of slugs. Out of their mass occasional limbs formed and dissolved repeatedly. An arm here, a leg there, a head rising before sinking back down again. There were dozens of them and more, a veritable horde of black, sliding wretches. More and more of them were arriving every passing second, until the ravine they had passed through was alive with twisted, writhing things that were one with the darkness.
"I've seen this before." Raziel muttered darkly.
"As have I." Kain replied. The two of them looked at each other gravely, their eyes locked. Raziel nodded once.
Then as one they burst from their concealment and raced into the square as fast as they could run. Neither of them was stupid enough to attempt to confront so many of such an adversary, even together. Ajatar was already coming to meet them and seemed quite surprised to find them racing at her, her good wing fanning out in reflex.
"My lord?!" She asked in alarmed apprehension.
"Run!" Kain shouted at her as they raced past. He did not need to elaborate. Behind them, the gloom of darkness which had settled over the Necropolis suddenly darkened considerably. All colour seemed to fade away from the already bleached stones, everything vanishing into a perpetual and impenetrable cloud of black. That cloud was moving swiftly after them, lurching forward like the fumbling hand of a colossal giant. Ajatar took one alarmed look at that and burst into her own run, keeping up with the two of them easily and even overtaking them.
The roiling, engulfing darkness did not advance their pursuit in a solid block. It moved erratically, some gaining ground, others retreating, and never at the same pace. The shadows, those forming shapes writhed within it, as though their own forms were a part of that reaching hand. There were hundreds of them or more, scrambling over one another like a school of fish in the water. The glints from their eyes, pinprick stars of violence in an ocean of utter black, showed quite plainly just how many of them there were.
The three of them were racing up the winding stairs now toward the central pyramid, Ajatar in the lead with her faster stride carrying her on. Certainly that encroaching tidal wave of darkness had frightened her enough to grant her sufficiently enthusiastic speed. Kain was bringing up the rear now and, glancing back, he could see the shadows pausing at the foot of the stairs, their twisting shapes uncoordinated and confused.
Then a figure slowly arose from the darkness, lurching upward as though rising out of a grave. It was a lean shape outlined by swirling shadows which danced around it.. At this distance it was impossible to make out much detail but the sight of it sent a shiver down Kain's spine despite himself.
Whatever it was, it was robed in darkness, the shadows wrapping around the thing like actual clothing. The face beneath the hood was pure bone white and featureless, hollow black eyes staring up after them and even from so far away Kain could feel the malice pouring out of those dark eyes. They were like two bottomless holes from which there was no escape.
Slowly the figure raised a hand and pointed up after them. No. Not after them. Those eyes were not for his companions. They were solely after him.
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"Whatever ghost or apparition this was, I could feel its gaze on me and it felt like ice. That finger was a beckoning gesture, calling me, summoning me to the death I had long cheated. If this was truly Death itself coming for me, then it would find its appointment once more postponed."
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His anger spiked and, growling in defiance, he forced his body into the furred and swift lupine form, racing on all fours up the stairs with blinding speed. Easily he ran Raziel and Ajatar down and flipped them onto his back and, almost before they could grab hold of him, he set himself to a firm gallop that blurred the world around them.
"Lord Kain?!" Ajatar managed but soon the sound of her startled voice was lost in the rush of the wind all around them. Kain pushed his form as hard as he dared, the muscles of the wolf pumping hard, fueled by urgency and a surge of rebellious anger. He raced on with all the speed this form could lend him, ascending the stairs dozens of steps at a time. The sight of those terrible black eyes had sunk deep into his mind and the memory of it spurred him on, driving him to run faster and faster. He just had to put as much distance between himself and those eyes as he could.
When they finally reached the top and the vaulted doorway leading into the pyramid, Kain's momentum was so quick it carried them inside head over heels for a good twenty feet before he was able to skid to a stop. His lupine form flipped up in the air before landing with a mad scrabble upon the stone floor. Raziel was faster, leaping from Kain's back to the doorway. The vaulted gateway and its iron grating were wide open to the elements. Grasping it firmly with his talons, the blue wraith yanked it down hard. It obeyed instantly, coming down to the floor and activating a mechanism that drew the large iron doors shut over it, sealing them in with a loud crash.
"This will not hold them off for very long." Raziel said, turning back to them, his expression grim. The light inside this den was pale, enough to see by for now but it was swiftly growing darker.
Kain rose back up to his feet, dusting himself off as he re-assumed his regular form. He stood there silently, his back to them to conceal his eyes, intense with a mixture of emotions. There was anger there, for certain. Resentment. Anxiety. And, of course, that potent and most odious of sensations; Fear. It sat there in his stomach, the cold sensation rising up his spine as the memory of those bottomless eyes haunted him. In those eyes he could feel every moment of time he had claimed in his Vampiric immortality being reclaimed, his soul sent into the nothingness of death where he by rights belonged.
"Kain!" Raziel said firmly. Kain drew in a breath and firmly set his face into a more authoritative expression, erecting as strong a wall as he could in his mind around the memory of those eyes.
"Seems the Divus aren't going to let us get away quite so easily." He said, drawing the Reaver and holding its hilt so tight his knuckles stood out.
"Lord Kain, your orders?" Ajatar asked, her own expression revealing that she was just as shaken as he was, although he knew for different reasons. But she stood there ready to accept her duty. The sight was inspiring and helped to bolster his own bulwark against the anxiety. He had lambasted her for succumbing to her emotions, and yet now she was forcing them aside to do her duty while he was the one struggling. Wryly he admitted to himself that Raziel had been right to point out his hypocrisy on this particular issue.
Looking squarely at her and straightening his shoulders, Kain declared; "We fight."