Saved by the Vampire

About an hour after the sun went down over an orange smoke-filled horizon, the vampire flew into the center of a small farming village and landed in the road. He was watched with fearful interest, the way that starving castaways on a desert island might watch a slaver's ship.

The reason for this was that the blukes were coming. The rear guard of the king's retreating army had passed through this morning, with the news that the blukes were less than two days behind them. The villagers had been left to their fate.

The visitor was the very model of an aristocratic vampire. His handsome face was as white as the moon, with long curly silky hair as dark as the sky. He flew in on huge batlike wings that folded up when he landed, taking the form of a fancy cloak, black on the outside and lined with red velvet on the inside.

He spoke with regal sibilant softness to the gathering crowd. "Doom is coming to you. I did not cause it. I can prevent it."

There was a murmur of interest among the villagers.

"My price is the traditional one. I want a maiden. If you deliver one to me, I will stop the blukes. It is a small price, really, to give one fair girl in exchange for all of your lives and homes. You have until tomorrow night to choose. I will come at dusk. If I see a suitable girl tied to a stake in the road, I will destroy the raiding force that threatens you."

With the speech delivered, he spread his great dark leathery wings and flew into the night.

The men of the village met in council. While a few of them wanted to refuse the vampire, they were quickly overruled by more calculating minds. The group began to decide which girl to sacrifice.

As soon as the vampire took wing and left, Irene had seen her fate sealed. She knew that the villagers would take the offer, and that she was the most likely choice. There were only a few girls who could honestly be described as a 'fair maiden', and a seventeen-year-old orphan barely scratching a living from a decaying farm would be seen as the most expendable one.

In addition to having no family to take her side, Irene was not liked. She kept to herself, did not join in shrine ceremonies, and had rejected several proposals from village boys, both decent and indecent ones. Nobody knew why, and Irene was not even sure. She only knew that she despised them all and the thought of being with any man disgusted her.

A few of the wilder gossips of the village rumored that she was in league with the mad witch of the forest, although the explanation of more reasonable people was that she was just a confused girl who had been driven mad by losing her parents to the Green Plague.

Irene decided to talk to the witch. She slipped out of town and took the secret forest paths to visit the cave of her old friend.

She returned to the village several hours later and got to her hovel shortly before the men came for her. She pretended to be asleep on her pile of straw and rags when they arrived, and pretended to fight a little as they grabbed her and tied her up. They took both of her knives, her one pottery bowl, and anything else that was sharp or could be broken into an edge. Then they nailed boards over the door and windows, and when they were done, they left the widow Chalmers to guard her.

Irene could have escaped easily enough. She only needed to quietly use her teeth to untie the knots, and then use a wooden plate to dig through one of the places where the wattle and daub was rotten. But she slept, as comfortably as she could.

Shortly before dusk on the next day, Chalmers bathed her, and dressed her in one of the clean silk shrine robes. Then the men took her and tied her to a stake in the center of the village. They were surprisingly gentle, and treated her better than they had ever treated her before.

Irene knew that this was nothing more than a desire not to harm the merchandise. If the vampire rejected her, then the villagers would have to fight the blukes themselves.

The vampire did not reject her. He seemed pleased as he sniffed her head and neck. Irene whispered to him, "If you will untie me now and let me watch you fight, I will embrace you willingly."

The vampire considered this. Finally, he agreed. It had been some time since he had a willing consort, and anyway there was too much of her spirit to eat all at once. Also, fighting just after feeding could be uncomfortable. He suppressed his hunger and walked calmly up the northern road to face the blukes just outside the village.

He smelled them coming. There were about fifty of them, and several of the larger beastfolk. There was also a gator-mage with a respectable aura. It was but a small fragment of the main force. The great horde had disbanded after defeating the king's army, spreading out and letting each warband take its own plunder.

They came over the hill, charging and screaming. Most of them were in a massed mob. This would be easy. The vampire reached into the energies of the darkest night to summon forth a cloud of inky, deadly smoke. It enveloped the charging force, and the vampire waited for the glorious sensation that accompanied mass death.

Death did not come. Something was wrong. The creature of the night focused on his adversaries, and then swore a blasphemy worthy of the deepest hells. Someone had warned them. Someone had told them to prepare for a vampire. They were all protected with runes and spells, which overlapped to encompass the whole group in potent wards.

The vampire knew that he must break their formation. He summoned magical balls of pure soul-stealing darkness and flung them at specific blukes. At the same time, he poured more and more of his soul into the death cloud.

Several blukes and a grizzly died from the concentrated missiles that passed right through shields and armor. Several more, at the edge of the crowd, finally fell to the death cloud. But by the time the blukes and their allies had reached the vampire, fully two thirds of their number were alive and ready to fight.

The low-ranked ones wielded wooden stakes infused with garlic. The veterans had silver weapons. A few of the captains had magic weapons, firebrands or thunder-blades that could strike down a vampire with ease.

The vampire drew his sword, a long thin thing made of a light black metal unknown to any mortal smith. He leapt into action, with the speed and unpredictability of a bat in flight.

But the raiders did not die easily. They already knew or guessed that the sword of blackest night could not be parried, but they ducked and dodged. This did not save them in the end, but it forced the vampire to take too much time to kill them, and often to throw himself off balance and vulnerable in order to do so.

The vampire knew that he would not win this fight with his blade. He was surrounded, and taking too much damage. For every one he killed, two or three would land blows, all hoping to claim his scalp. If he did not retreat, he would need to draw upon his deeper magic, making his location known to wizards and other vampires and telling them he was vulnerable.

The vampire howled, with an unearthly scream that made weak-minded mortals lose all sanity. The beastfolk went mad, but the blukes did not. However, they did back off and stumble, and in that split second of opportunity the vampire spread his wings and took flight. One of the blukes managed to gash a wing as he did, but he could still fly.

As soon as he cleared the circle, the vampire felt a horrible pain as something pierced his left lung. It was a crossbow bolt, fletched in the bluke style but with no metal head. It was an ash stake, and it burned with the fire of garlic. If it had landed a few inches higher, he would be dead.

More arrows shot up. They came from a group of bluke archers that had been hidden behind the hill. They were wielding semi-automatic repeating crossbows of antfolk design, and they filled the sky with a storm of wooden stakes. Most of them were aimed above his head, in the direction he was flying, and so he was forced to slow down and turn to avoid death. Even so, many arrows found him, ripping more holes in his wings that made fast flight impossible.

In desperation, the vampire surrounded himself with a cloud of living night, plunged straight down with telekinetic force, and levitated just above ground level with a flicker of speed, directly into the archers. He hoped to scatter them like leaves, but as he landed in their midst they dropped their bows and pulled wooden stakes from their belts.

They were not as good as the front-line fighters, and they fell before the dancing nightblade. But they had bought time. The original group of blukes had regrouped, and charged the vampire.

The vampire summoned another cloud of blackness in front of them, but this was not an attack. It was a portal. Creatures of the night issued forth, wolves and bats and stinging insects. They fell upon the blukes.

The blukes began to cut them down. But as they did, the vampire charged. In the confusion caused by his minions he began to turn the tide of battle, wielding both his blade and razor-sharp ribbons of solid black ink with great effect. But he still took damage. Several bones were broken, and he bled silvery blood from a dozen wounds. But he would win, and he would recover.

The ground shook with a fierce tremor, and the vampire saw and heard and felt great gouts of flame leap from cracks in the soil. The flames formed a circle of bright hot light around him, and their tall dancing flames leaned toward the inside of the circle, making a dome of flame in the night.

The gator-mage had joined the battle. With a grin, he strode into the dome of fire and cast a cloud-kill spell of its own. All of the bats and insects died, as the last wolf was struck down by a bluke.

The vampire looked into the grinning green face of the gator-mage and saw his death. He was out of tricks. All his spells were expended. And now the greatest warrior of the bluke horde stood before him.

The chieftain wielded a great obsidian club in each hand. These had enough magic to parry the nightblade, and their wielder had the speed and skill to use them well. In the vampire's weakened and broken state, he was no match for either the melee prowess or the magical skill of the leader of the blukes. The great dome of searing flame made escape impossible.

The vampire and gator-mage paused, and they stared at each other. The three remaining blukes took the advantage of this lull to flank the vampire. One of them dropped his wooden stake and picked up a flaming sword that had fallen to the ground with its former owner.

The gator-mage began to move, then, with grace and confidence. But suddenly, a bluke arrow appeared in its neck. It was not a very serious wound, but it stunned him for half a second. That was all the time that the vampire needed to summon one last burst of energy and leap forward, driving his sword with a lunge-thrust past the clubs and into his enemy's heart. The gator-mage reeled backward, and the vampire stabbed him again. Only after five stabs was the vampire confident enough to step closer, into the range of the clubs, and bring his sword around in a sweeping arc that took off the head of the gator-mage.

The blukes did not lose their valor even then. They charged as one, and the vampire nearly died. But somehow, he still had enough speed and magic to prevail, and though it cost him another dozen wounds he finally cut the last of them down.

The vampire fell to the ground, too weak even to move. He lay on his back, staring into the cloudy night sky, absorbing its power and slowly starting to heal.

Irene appeared in his field of vision. She held a bluke crossbow in her left hand for him to see. The vampire smiled at her, and she smiled at him. She dropped the crossbow and knelt down. "I made a promise, and I will keep it."

The vampire turned his head to her, ready to take just enough of her blood to give him the strength to fly. They would enjoy so much together, he felt. He might even allow her to become his equal, and they could fly the night together.

Irene held herself just out of reach. "Join me in spirit," she breathed softly. The vampire opened his mind to her, allowing her to feel the glory and power that he possessed. She would soon be drawn to him, drawn to his power, and then she would give her blood in exchange for that power. But she held back, almost drawing closer but not quite. The vampire opened more and more of himself to her to draw her in.

Irene hit the vampire in the face with the pommel of the silver dagger in her right hand. His mouth turned away from her, and he collapsed back, stunned. Then she slit his throat. As her left hand pressed his face into the ground, she slurped up the silvery blood that flowed freely from his neck.

Irene claimed and seized the power that the vampire had dangled tantalizingly of front her. But she did not stop there. The mind-link was still open, and Irene used it. She drank his soul as she drank his blood, holding him in the same embrace that he had used on so many mortals.

Most people will eat an apple from the side, taking the better bits from the outside and leaving the core behind. Irene did not do this. She started eating an apple at the bottom and worked up, eating the core and seeds and skin and fruit until there was nothing left but a stem. And then she chewed on the stem, fooling her body into believing that it had food, until the stem fell apart into tiny fibers, which she swallowed.

Irene ate the vampire's power more thoroughly than she ever ate an apple. She took all that was worth taking of him. Just before the end, he was revealed to be a vain and foolish youth, lured and trapped by promises made by another vampire countless centuries before. Irene released him from her embrace, throwing him contemptuously to the ground just before he turned to dust.

Irene rose as a creature of awful power, as much above the vampire as he had been above the villagers. The gifts that he had idly squandered in a life of decadence now lived inside a woman who had for years learned to wring every scrap of use from the resources she had available. She reached out her hand and lifted the sword off the ground with a thought. She made it hover in midair and inspected it. It was dull. She would have to find a way to sharpen it.

Now, Irene needed to practice using her newfound power of blackest night. A small test would help to become accustomed to her new life. She turned around. Yes, the destruction of the villagers who had tried to sacrifice her would be a good start. She took the scabbard off the ground, buckled it around her waist, and sheathed the sword.

She used all of the vampire's magical techniques, and invented a few new ones. The villagers cried in madness and agony as Irene killed them slowly. Soon the only human alive within miles was the witch who Irene had worked with to plot the encounter and warn the blukes. She had enjoyed the massacre almost as much as Irene. Now she scurried over to the battle site, to collect the totems and body parts of the gator mage and fallen bluke chieftans. Irene smiled. It was a great reward for her, but that power was nothing compared to what Irene now had.

As she had used her magic, Irene had become aware of a deep gnawing hunger. It was almost as bad as what she had felt last winter, after someone had stolen her barrel of dried peas. But she did not gorge herself on the ones she killed. Only a few of the peasants had anything in them that was worth consuming. There were a few strong souls, farmers and housewives. Irene took enough of them to satisfy hunger, but not so much that she took in anything weak.

The biggest mistake that vampires made, Irene decided, was to eat weak little morsels of people, foolish sugary things that rotted the teeth and gave nothing of what was needed to build strong bones and muscles.

Irene would feed on the souls of bluke warriors. She had liked what she saw in the fight. There was strength and will there, and the ego and skill to defy the world and laugh at all the kings of men. She would ride with them and hunt with them and fight with them, and they would worship her. She would take a little bit from all of them; they were strong enough to support her and still fight well. In return, she would give them a tiny bit of the power of the night, and they would use those scraps of power to great effect, becoming even more fierce and terrible.

The first true Queen of the Night in over a millennium spread her wings. They were feathered and beautiful, like a great raven. She took off, heading for another band of blukes.