14 – Honoring the Spirits

Victor’s proclamation had the desired effect. The vampires assembled behind their spokesman, Ymrish Blackhand, hissed and seethed, cursing and threatening with varying levels of eloquence. Ymrish frowned, and his horse stamped, but he didn’t move. After a few seconds, when his companions had settled, he asked, “Is that so?”

“Yes. I don’t need to slay you all, however. I’ll give you a chance—one time—to surrender. If you do so, I’ll find a way for you to pay reparations to the people of this world that won’t end in your demise.” He raised his voice and looked to the vampires assembled behind Ymrish. “That goes for all of you. Kneel to me here, and your lives will be spared.”

Gorian, the giant, growled and gripped his long, black spear, urging his horse forward until he was beside Ymrish. “Let us kill this great fool, Ymrish! I’m weary of his insolent tongue!”

Before Ymrish could answer, Victor reached into his spirit space and brought Lifedrinker out, hefting her giant axe-head up and resting it on his shoulder. “I don’t see anyone kneeling. Last chance. You have until I count to five.” While the two lead vampires glared, Victor said, “One.”

The woman clicked her tongue, and her mount adroitly sidestepped, moving off the road. “I believe he’s serious, brothers.”

“Two,” Victor said.

Ymrish looked from Victor to the woman and said, “Anything more helpful to add, Jane?”

“If you mean to parlay—”

Victor interrupted her by saying, “Three.”

“—then I’d be quick. Elsewise, get on your knees or prepare for battle!”

Ymrish looked back at Victor with narrowed eyes and snarling lips. “What did you say your name was?”

“I’m Victor. Four.” Victor made sure his Sovereign Will was bolstering his strength and agility.

The apparent vampire leader chopped his hand through the air. “Enough! You’re one man—human, at that, regardless of your absurd size!”

“Five.” When he said the word, Victor did several things at once. He unleashed his aura in full, letting its baleful, dark weight fall on the vampires like a blanket of blood, claws, fury, and nightmares incarnate. While they recoiled and several fell from their saddles, he clicked his tongue, mentally communicating his desire for Guapo to charge. At the same time, he cast Velocity Mantle.

As his thoughts and movements surged with a potent Energy infusion, the rest of the world slowed like it was buried in a lake of molasses. Guapo screamed his excitement as his eyes blazed with fire and he pounded toward the two lead vampires. Victor felt like he had all the time in the world to lift Lifedrinker and cleave her in a broad, right-handed swipe that crunched into the giant vampire’s chest, splitting his armor like it was made of cardboard. Flesh and bones parted ways beneath her impossibly heavy, razor-sharp edge, and she threw the brute from his saddle like he was a toddler.

It happened so fast that Victor was able to switch up his grip, rotate Guapo with his knees, and then chop Lifedrinker through Ymrish’s leg on the backswing, killing his horse in the process. Animal and vampire fell in a screaming, thrashing, spray of blood. Perhaps two seconds had elapsed since he’d said “five,” and some of the quicker vampires—those that had recovered from the weight of his aura—had realized the fight was on. The woman, Jane, screamed, and her voice was like a lance of death that stabbed Victor in the side, corrupting his flesh, necrotizing it, and boring into his ribs.

The pain might have given him pause, once upon a time, but Victor had lived for the better part of a year with a void consuming his flesh. The woman’s deathly ray was only a mild reminder of that pain. He ignored it. Guapo carried him onward, and soon he was among the Blood Reavers, laying about with his axe, cleaving limbs, parting flesh, and decapitating vampire and undead horse alike.

As Jane’s necrotic scream faded, and his flesh immediately began to repair itself, Victor sensed her gathering Energy for a greater working. Meanwhile, many of the reavers put up a good fight, and some were quick enough to parry Victor’s blows. A few even managed to stab, claw, or bite him. Victor ignored his many minor wounds, purely focusing on the offensive; he’d already determined that none of them had the strength to kill him outright, and his body could heal from nearly any non-fatal blow.

Soon, he was the only one standing, and the handful of vampires still fighting him were doing more harm to Guapo than him, so he dismissed the mustang, mentally thanking him for his brave ferocity. On the ground, amid shattered bodies, blood, and writhing, groaning injured, Victor continued his carnage.

The vampires weren’t without powerful spells, and some were incredibly resilient. He watched one of them scrabble over the road toward his severed leg, hold it to his stump, and reattach it with a webbing of animated blood. Spears of shaped blood pierced his flesh, webs of dark magic attempted to hold him, and all manner of mental attacks pounded against the fortress of his mind. Victor’s will was an aegis against the vampires’ attempts to mesmerize, charm, or instill fear.

Finally, when just a few still lived, he felt Jane’s spell reach a crescendo, and he turned away from his battered foes to see what she’d been up to. Gorian and Ymir were on their knees before her, and a thick torrent of blood ran from each into her outstretched palms. She’d seized the opportunity of their wounded state to drain them. Victor wondered if he should have interrupted her sooner, but curiosity had gotten the better of him. He’d wanted to see if these steel-seeker vampires could do anything to truly threaten him.

He supposed it was hubris, but he didn’t care. If he was going to face a veil walker soon, he had to challenge himself; strength didn’t come from taking easy roads through life. With that determination, he turned and almost lazily finished the last of the Blood Reavers, hacking Lifedrinker through their torsos or smashing their heads. The road was drenched in viscera and blood, and littered with the decomposing remnants of deathly horses that Lifedrinker had mutilated.

When only he remained standing, Victor turned to regard Jane and watched as she pulled the last dregs of vital blood and Energy from her former companions. Her body had swelled with the infusion, and she stood, tall and scarecrow-like—eyes wide and red, enlarged jaw hanging open with great fangs exposed. She radiated power that dwarfed what Victor had felt from the vampires when he’d first examined them.

He opened his inner eye and examined her Core. It roiled with Energy—no longer simply frigid and blue, but now paired with a twin, pulsating pool of blood-red. She’d nearly doubled in power by consuming her kin. Victor wondered if it was temporary or if she’d truly gained so much permanent strength. He decided it had to be at least partially temporary, otherwise the vampires would constantly betray one another.

“Well, fool, you left the harmless woman alone too long, didn’t you?” Her sharp, brittle voice interrupted Victor’s musings, and he refocused on her monstrous face.

“Is that what you think happened?”

“You thought my power too inconsequential, so you turned your back on me! Look now, fool! Does regret turn your bile sour?” She stepped toward the road, her long, stick-like pale legs slipping from her too-small gown.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“I was curious what you were doing. The Pale Warden tried something similar, but I killed him too quickly to find out what it was. So you’ve borrowed your poor comrades’ power? Is that all?”

“Is that all?” She lifted off the road, drifting toward Victor, arms outstretched as she floated on a small, misty cloud of blood-tinged fog. “That would be enough, but no, there’s more. A touch of their power is now mine and, thanks to you, I can justify my actions to Lord Fausto.”

“Ah, I wondered how that would work. So you vampires can do that to each other, hmm? Or is it a Death Caster thing?”

“I’ve told you enough. Make peace with your maker, mortal!” Her movements became a blur as she circled him, faster than any of the previous vampires had moved. Even so, Victor’s Velocity Mantle was running strong; he’d only used a fraction of his Energy slaying the other vampires. He tracked her movement, and when she stood behind him and opened her mouth to shriek, he moved to the side, dodging the cone of death-attuned Energy that erupted from the abyss of her throat.

It took her a moment to realize he’d moved, and she poured out a torrent of Energy, blasting the empty road, coating it with hoary ice and crystallizing the blood and guts scattered before her. Victor had the opening to strike, but was still observing, so he waited for her to realize what had happened. She shrieked again, but this time in frustration as she spun to see him standing there. “Quick, are you?”

Victor didn’t respond, and she spread her arms, channeling blood-attuned Energy into yard-long, sword-like claws that sprang from her already elongated fingers. The air shimmered, and she disappeared. Victor had seen that move one too many times not to realize she was about to slash his back with those claws, so he darted forward, once again, faster than she could track. She whipped her claws through empty air, and, to her credit, it looked like it would have hurt if they’d hit him.

Once again, Victor opened his inner eye, examining her Core and smiled when he saw the blood-attuned orb was half the size it had been earlier. “Damn, you’re burning off that stolen power quickly.”

Again, she shrieked, but she didn’t charge him. She answered his taunt by surging with a tremendous torrent of Energy—a mix of blood and death. Her bloody claws fell away, and she clenched her fists. Victor felt a wall of force, cold and sharp, wrap around him, and he knew she was going to try to slice him into a hundred pieces. It felt potent, and it got his heart beating enough for him to focus on the road behind Jane and cast Tactical Reposition.

Having seen enough and judging her stolen power to be nearly spent, he slashed Lifedrinker through her exposed back, cleaving her top half from the bottom. As the two parts fell, an echoing, ghostly wail erupted from her lips, and a red cloud hissed out of her broken body. It took the shape of a spectral version of Jane and drifted into the night sky, trailing that awful, echoing wail the whole while.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Victor summoned his magma wings and burst into the air, chasing after the spectral, blood-tinted figure. She was fast, and he had to pour more and more Energy into his wings, reaching speeds he’d never attempted before. Still, he finally caught up, and, as he drew near, he inhaled deeply and blasted the specter with a cone of Abyssal Magma, trusting the void component of the deadly mixture to affect the ghost, even if simple fire would not. His assumption proved sound, and, with a parting wail of despair, the bloody, mist-like wraith broke apart, and Jane was no more.

Victor flew back to the scene of the battle. Frowning, he folded his arms and contemplated the corpses and…parts of corpses. As he suspected—as he’d hoped

—they hadn’t been particularly challenging. Vampires were some of the more limited Death Casters, in his experience. They relied on speed, savagery, and skill with weapons to slay their foes. In many cases, that was plenty, especially in the worlds where the undead reigned supreme. A vampire was a good counter to a mage-type Death Caster, but against Victor? Their greatest strengths—speed, strength, blood corruption, and mental domination—were useless.

As for Jane, well, she’d cast a few spells that might have caused him some problems if he’d been foolish enough to let her hit him. So far, his speed was superior. Would that hold true with Lord Fausto? Would the Ancient Lord have a little more power than the elder vampires, or would he have exponentially more? One thing was certain: these vampires had feared him.

Sighing at the grisly task, he summoned one of his storage containers from his spirit space and walked around the battle site, collecting bodies and limbs. He’d make sure the people back at his keep knew what he’d done there. Job done, he summoned his wings again and exploded into the sky, trailing black smoke as he flew like a comet through the night toward the distant star he’d left hanging above what had once been known as Gloomhallow Keep.

He went so quickly that he was nearly halfway back before the Energy from his victory caught up to him. As before, he hardly felt it as it passed into his spirit space and added to the dense pool in his Energy-well. It had been a lot of Energy, which, of course, made sense. The vampires had all been steel seekers, after all. Still, it seemed almost like cheating when he considered how damn easy the fight had been.

As he descended, he ensured he had enough momentum to carry himself over the wall and then cancelled his wings, not wanting to spatter any of the hundreds of people gathered below with magma. He landed near the center of the courtyard with a tremendous thud and waved to Tasya as she came jogging from the gatehouse. While he waited for her to reach him, Victor looked around the keep, up to the walls, nodding his approval as he saw what had to be every single soldier standing guard, patrolling with weapons in hand.

“Lord Victor! You returned with haste! Is all well?”

Victor smiled, nodding as he looked down at himself. His fine clothes from Ruhn had already cleaned themselves of the blood he’d liberally bathed in. Still, his hands and arms were spattered. His face was no doubt similarly gory. “All is well. Instruct our people to gather around. Leave the center of the courtyard empty.”

She saluted and ran off, barking orders, so Victor got to work, emptying the storage ring of his grisly trophies. He laid out each body, adding limbs or heads as he retrieved them from the ring. It wasn’t perfect—Lifedrinker had pulped many parts of them—but he did his best, and soon it was evident that fifteen vampire corpses lay on the cold, hard stones of the courtyard. When he finished, it was so quiet, one could have heard a sparrow’s heartbeat.

He stood before his grisly display and slowly turned in a circle, acknowledging the keep's silent, fidgeting citizens and soldiers. Tasya had done a good job lining them up on either side of the courtyard while keeping most of the soldiers on the walls. Victor walked up and down his line of corpses, gesturing to them with an open hand.

“I’ve slain these elder vampires who came here to reclaim this keep and the lands around it.” He braced his fists on his hips and stared at the crowd, wishing he had his damn glory affinity. Why weren’t they cheering? Instead, they looked at him with shell-shocked eyes. So, he cleared his throat and raised his voice, booming, “I said I killed these pinché vampires who came here to take back our keep!”

To his relief, Tasya lifted her arms and shouted, “Yes! Thank you, Lord Victor!” Her participation seemed to break a spell, and dozens more joined in on the cheering, but it still felt a little forced. Victor shook his head, clicking his tongue. All he could think was how sad it was. How beaten those poor bastards were. Suddenly, an idea came to him.

“Now that Fausto finds himself alone in his city, his greatest supporters dead at my feet, I’ll be sending raiding parties north. You’ll hunt down the weaker vampires that occupy the lands around Riverbend, and you’ll slay them.” As he spoke, he canceled the spell that maintained his coyotes. Meanwhile, frightened faces received his words, and nervous, fearful muttering filled the courtyard.

“I wouldn’t send you alone, not until you’re stronger.” He concentrated briefly and summoned his coyotes again, using hope-attuned Energy just as he had the last time. As the beautiful, silvery canines sprang into the courtyard, circling as they yipped and snarled happily, he shouted, “Each raiding party will have one of my companions. They will guide you to your prey and help you slay the stronger vampires—the Bloodcloaks and the like. Meanwhile, you will grow stronger, and you’ll begin to learn that you are not cattle!”

He thumped his fist into his hand to punctuate the last word, and many soldiers stood up a little taller. “Now, before we worry about that, take note of the corpses before you. I will send them to my ancestors—an offering. What my ancestors will do with them and their equipment, I don’t know, but they will appreciate the gesture. Consider that! You have ancestors. Each and every one of you has a long line of people who suffered and died in this godawful world so that you could stand here before me—so that you could finally strike back on their behalf. Think of that when you slay your first undead!”

With that, Victor turned and focused on the bodies, casting Honor the Spirits. Ghostly flames erupted from the very stones, rapidly consuming the corpses, their clothing and equipment, and all the blood that had spattered on the ground. As the flames winked out and the wispy, ethereal smoke dissipated into the air, Victor held up his hands and roared, “Now, we celebrate!”

For the first time, some of the soldiers cheered without him having to urge anyone. Grinning broadly, Victor reached into his spirit space and took out one of the rings full of provisions. Then, in the place where the vampire corpses had been, he began putting down casks of wine, kegs of ale, and sacks of hearty provisions. “We’ll feast tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll choose our first five units to travel north, where they’ll hunt the undead!”