Despite the whispered complaints amongst the men about my new training regimen, we still made good time to our destination. I thought I was able to keep up a decent enough pace that our steady progress wasn’t much different from when I was on horseback, and we only added a day to our original weeklong excursion. Within the few days of this new exercise until we reached Blackwall, I already noticed a difference in my cardio and the last day was nowhere near as challenging as the first. I was still a bit slower than Ash during our training, but only just barely. Perhaps Obarith hadn’t thought the Goddess’ blessings went further than skin deep and his changes hadn’t wiped my slate completely clean.

Finally, we arrived at Fort Brakkash, affectionately known as Blackwall. The fort city was a decent size, meant to act more as a garrison for those stationed there than for civilians to live in. There was an actual city not far to the southwest from the stronghold for replenishing necessary supplies and where soldiers could visit while on leave. Blackwall was made of gray stone and looked like any other fortress I had seen in pictures or movies, with tall walls and sturdy gates. Further north was a chaotic layout of unforgiving rocky, hilly terrain, combined with a sea of black pines. It was this impenetrable looking forest of pine trees that gave the Black Hills their name, and Fort Brakkash was the wall protecting Monera from the perceived dangers that lay beyond.

I had noticed in our last day of travel that it was getting colder, despite being on the cusp of summer. The days were still fairly warm and pleasant, but I was glad for my hoodie by the midafternoons. This felt odd to me, as I didn’t feel we’d traveled far north enough to have it feel like winter was still rearing its ugly head.

“It’s the Black Hills, lass,” Duncan had explained. “There is an eerie magic that seeps through that land and affects the weather. It makes it more pleasant for the undead and harsher for the living. The far north used to be choked in the clutches of the vampires. It has been a dangerous place to live in or near for as long as mankind has known of it.”

After entering the fort, our group had quickly dispersed. I wanted to see a clear view of our destination and was looking out at the Black Hills from the top of a fortress wall when Duncan found me.

“Why am I not surprised to find you up here?” He asked.

“After all I had heard about where we were going, I had to see it for myself.” I replied.

He turned and observed the Hills with me. “It feels like I’d only just left this place, and yet returned far too soon for my liking. In all my travels, I have never been to a place where you can feel the evil in the land itself.”

I nodded. Something felt… wrong… about where we were. Everything had an unnatural aura to it, like a black mark or a stain on nature’s natural beauty.

“So got any history lessons for me about this place? Any time I asked one of the boys about it, I just got some shudders and a supreme disinterest in sharing.”

Duncan grunted in acknowledgement. “Indeed. The Black Hills are a hard place to stomach. Of those that have accompanied us, only a handful had been to Blackwall before. And only I myself have ever breached the Black Hills, though that was decades ago.”

How old was Duncan anyway? He didn’t appear older than 50, but he always spoke with a wisdom and experience of someone well over that.

Duncan continued, “As far back as the history books tell, the Black Hills have been the home to vampires. No other race has dared encroached on their territory. Throughout the millennia, they choked the land with evil and made the north a very unfriendly place for the living. Only when the war between the Gods was over, did the Vampires lose their strangle hold on their domain. Their connection to their creator, Oryx, was lost when the Gods of Darkness were sealed away. Their numbers slowly ebbed and their presence in the Hills waned, but the evil aura remains.” He rubbed a hand over his tired face, almost as if he had experienced the events firsthand.

“Over the last few hundred years, the Crown made a concerted effort to attempt to hunt down any who still roamed these lands, so that it would be somewhere humans could expand. It would be harsh living, but it gave us somewhere else to go.”

I looked out across the sea of rock and pine. The fort was positioned within a couple hour’s ride of the border line of the forest. Harsh living didn’t appear to even begin to describe how tough the land looked up there. I could feel a chilly breeze blowing down from the north, forcing me to clutch my hood close around my face and wish for my sweatpants again.

Duncan stood next to me, unflinching in the cold breeze.

“The Zannisters and soldiers positioned at Blackwall caution all who come this far north with intent to settle. As undead, the vampires still fear the sunlight, but are unaffected by the cold. They are infamous for their ability to cheat death and have crafted a deep cave system tunneled into the Hills.” He grimaced, “They’re like cockroaches. There was no way to ensure they had been completely wiped out, even after the last reported sighting of any true vampire a few hundred years ago. Only rabid and feral thralls have persisted to hunt in the north.”

He grunted again heavily, “And no army contingent has braved enough of those nightmarish lands to penetrate deep enough to sack Castle Black Rose.

That sounded ominous. I decided to inquire about the castle another time and returned to the purpose of our visit.

“So, what makes the Zannisters certain vampires have returned, and that the reports of missing people are not something else?” I asked.

Duncan merely pointed, “The weather.”

I looked back out at the Black Hills. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it, but something else had felt odd about them. It wasn’t until Duncan pointed it out that I noticed. There wasn’t just a feeling of cold in the air, emanating from the ominous forest beyond, the sky above looked different as well.

Thick, blood red, rolling clouds were encroaching from the horizon, cloaking the land below in a red shadow. It gave the entire land a blood red hue. I shuddered again as I realized this, but this time not from the cold.

Duncan had observed that I had connected the dots, “The weather is brought about by a foul magic. It gives the vampires more control of their environment, making even the daytime treacherous.” He stroked his mustache thoughtfully.

“A foul magic indeed. I didn’t believe the reports were true when I came here last, in response to the Zannister’s missive to the king. The cloud cover is returning with a strength not seen since their empire fell nearly a thousand years ago.”

He crossed his arms defiantly at the mass of evil brewing in front of us.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, now that we have been ordered to investigate the status of the Black Hills. I hope you are ready, Amelia.”

I gulped and turned from him to look back at our goal ahead of us. I had been in such an excited hurry to get here, and now I found myself in a rush to leave as quickly as possible.

“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”

A sad smile turned at the corners of his mouth.

“No. It would not.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had never been involved in a military operation before, but everything operated like a well-oiled machine at Blackwall. Adjustments to the barracks had already been made for our impending arrival, and we were able to quickly unload and settle in to get some rest before our first reconnaissance mission in the morning. Duncan wanted the mission to start early to maximize our daylight hours, as he wanted us back behind the walls of the fort before sunset.

Based on the whispers of the danger that awaited us once we crossed the tree line, I couldn’t blame him. In the short time spent among the men stationed at the fort, I learned the vampires were a kind of bogeyman to them. The main purpose of the fort was to prevent a returned threat to the kingdom. But for a few generations, the fort had been manned with barely a whisper from the dangers of the North. They had gotten complacent.

But now that a return seemed imminent, there was unrest in the air. No human alive had seen a vampire, and the rumors about what we might encounter tomorrow were everywhere around the dining hall.

“Some have two heads!”

“Oi! I hear they can turn invisible!”

“You’re so daft, mate! They don’t turn invisible! They just move faster than you can see!”

“I hear they feast on your fear as much as your blood! They’ll start devouring you while you’re still alive, savoring your terror as long as possible before ending it all!”

None of the rumors sounded good, and I found myself gripping the hilt of Lily for comfort on more than one occasion. Was it too much to hope the vampires were just sparkly, brooding, gorgeous teenagers?

I had wandered out of the dining hall into the peaceful evening to get some fresh air away from all the buzzing when a voice suddenly whispered in my ear.

“I like the way you grip that shaft there.”

I jumped and screeched as I drew Lily and held her between me and the voice.

There, skulking in the shadows of the encroaching night, was Kit.

“She’s so jumpy!” He leaned back and grinned, hands on his hips.

It took a minute for me to steady my breathing.

Who sneaks up on someone like that at night?

I sheathed my dagger and tried to look composed by stuffing my hands in my hoodie pocket.

“What do you want? You’ve made it clear you aren’t interested in tutoring me any further.”

He’d only worked with me after Duncan had threatened him, and it’d lasted five whole minutes before he had laughed me off and the tutoring had ended.

“I can’t figure you out, Amy.” He began to circle me like a shark, eyeing me up and down hungrily. “You seem to know what you are doing, and yet at the same time manage to do it as piss poorly as I have ever seen.”

As he passed by me, his voice seemed to somehow echo around me, “I’m sure you have heard about me from Dorian. What kind of dangerous man I am?”

I swiveled my head to try and follow his voice, “Is what he said not true?”

I heard him chuckle, “I’ll leave that for you to decide.”

Then his voice was in my ear again, “You know, I’ve heard things about you, too.”

I had expected him to attempt to rattle me again, and yet I still flinched. My hands were starting to sweat profusely. I had been perfectly fine with both him and Julius heeding Chad’s advice and not bothering with me. What was he getting at? Why now? I was already nervous about tomorrow’s mission.

He finished circling, still leaning near me with his face close enough I could feel his unsettling, hot breath. His blazing red eyes were fixed on mine, almost as if he was waiting for a sudden flicker in them to betray me and tell him everything he wished to know.

“Word is you are Chadwick’s Star. It’s why he is so protective of you.”

I tried not to show any emotion on my face, but I couldn’t help it and my eyes widened a bit for just a split second.

It was all the confirmation Kit needed.

“So, it is true! The entire kingdom saw the star when it lit up the night sky months ago. When I saw it, I immediately thought of the prince and his ludicrous claims we’ve heard him preach on about for years. He must have felt like he was getting a second birthday!”

He finally leaned away from me, hands still on his hips. “Only for him to discover it turned out to be such an unremarkable girl. He seems to hold you with some sort of disdain I have yet to figure out,” he waved at me, “beyond the obvious of course.”

He started tapping his foot in thought. “And yet, he isn’t keen on Julius or I finding out more about you or having any interactions with you. So full of mystery, aren’t you?”

He then lunged at me in a blur, but stopped again, mere inches from my face.

His huge grin shone white in the reflection of the moonlight, so primal and hungry, I could have sworn he had pointed teeth.

“Good. Very good.”

I didn’t understand what he was getting at, until I realized I had instinctively raised one hand to defend myself, while the other had swiftly moved to Lily again. I was gripping her so tightly, I was sure my knuckles were as white as the bone hilt.

He leaned away again. “Very curious. Your instincts are honed enough to defend yourself from threats, you just lack the capability to do anything about it.” I noticed he had one of his throwing knives palmed in one of his hands, as if implying that, had I failed his test so miserably, he might have actually stabbed me. He noticed my eyes on his hand, and the weapon was gone in a flash.

“What are you?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

I could ask the same of you.

A frown finally creased his forehead, but he quickly waved it off and decided he was done toying with me.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind today. Please do me the favor of not dying before I can solve your riddle, hmm?”

I watched him walk away, only to glimpse that Julius had been observing our interaction from around a nearby corner. We made eye contact, and he merely gave me an abrupt nod, and disappeared.

How did I continue to attract attention when I didn’t want any?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day after our arrival, it was time. All 18 of us stood at attention in a line as Duncan paced in front, barking out orders.

“Alright men! This task will be like none you have ever experienced before! Not even I know what to expect once we breach the tree line of the north. Our destination is a village known as Rosethorne, nearly a two-hour ride into the dense forest of the Black Hills. It is a small settlement that normally has contact with Blackwall for provisions and basic trade.”

Duncan stopped pacing in front of me. He remained facing forward but looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “The town went silent over two months ago. We are to investigate any possible cause of the broken line of communication, as well as look for any other signs of the resurgence of vampires in the area.”

He spun and paced back along the line. “Our aim is to contact Rosethorne and conclude our findings in time to return to Blackwall before sunset. I have no wish to be caught outside the walls after dark.” He turned and faced Kit specifically, “And neither should you.”

I kept my face forward like the rest but saw a flicker of movement from Kit that indicated he merely shrugged in response.

“If contact is made with our enemy, you are to act in defense only. This is a reconnaissance mission, not an extermination. Do not run off and abandon the group. Do not engage hostiles on your own. And most importantly, do NOT pursue anything underground.”

I heard snickering somewhere along the line. These troops were handpicked by Duncan and were supposed to be some of the best. During our trip, I had gotten the same vibe from some of them that Julius had expressed: they thought this was a waste of their superior talents. They felt they were chasing ghosts, and nothing more.

They weren’t afraid.

And Duncan was not amused.

“I understand some of you think this task beneath you. I chose each of you for my confidence in your abilities. But make no mistake, in this environment, fear will be your ally. It will keep you alive more assuredly than your skill with a blade.”

A darkness set across his face.

“If the rumors are true regarding the suspected reason Rosethorne has gone quiet, this foe is like nothing any of us has ever faced. Our only information on contact with such a supernatural threat is hundreds of years old. Decapitation and sunlight are the only constants throughout the texts of how to kill such an animal. Show no mercy.”

He turned, his back to us as he faced the northern gate, facing the Black Hills beyond.

“And may the Gods have mercy on our souls.”