Victor’s Quinametzin heart surged with fury at the wampyr’s words—a challenge and an insult. Did this ugly, gray monstrosity think it could stand before him so brazenly? Did it believe itself a match for his fury? Victor glared around, Lifedrinker on his shoulder, and, as blood dripped from his armor, from his knuckles, and his elbows, making little pools on the marble, he smiled, a toothy, fierce smile that said more about murder than amusement. His aura was fully untethered, lying heavy around him, sharing space with the smoldering heat of the bloody sun on his banner. The wampyr lord’s “children” could feel it; they shrank back from him, hugging the edges of the great chamber in their hundreds.

“Well, then? Come to me, meal.” Dunstan’s voice was thick with lust as he turned to his enormous throne-like chair and snatched up a great, jagged sword that looked to be carved from rose-colored stone. Despite its strange material, the blade looked sharp and heavy, and the tiny part of Victor’s mind that wasn’t hot with blood lust didn’t relish having it strike him. He took a step toward the monstrous figure, but Dunstan had other ideas, cracking his vast, veiny wings and streaking toward him, sword held high.

Victor was no novice when it came to a brawl and certainly not where the axe was concerned. The great wampyr was fast, but Victor was a match for him, and he sidestepped, ducked a shoulder, put his thick juggernaut helm in the path of that stony sword, and hacked Lifedrinker down in a brutal chop, aimed at where he could predict Dunstan’s leg would land. The gambit paid off perfectly, or it would have if Lifedrinker had been able to do more than scratch the wampyr’s thick, wrinkled, gray flesh.

The sword rang like a gong as it smashed into the crown of his helm. Lifedrinker rebounded from the creature’s knee, and Victor danced behind the monstrosity, ducking under a wide wing. As he passed behind Dunstan, he tried to drag Lifedrinker along the veiny, gray membrane of that wing, and again, she failed to penetrate it. She was fully ablaze, engorged with his dark, fear-attuned Energy, yet she wailed in frustration as she fruitlessly slid along that dense, pliable flesh.

“You bring a toy to fight with me?” Dunstan laughed and whirled, whipping his huge, cleaver-like stone sword in a wide arc. Victor backstepped and brought Lifedrinker up in a parry, aiming to knock the blade away with the flat top of her axe head. He was just a fraction of a second too slow, and though she slid along his sword, he didn’t have the right angle or momentum to stop that ripping edge, and it bit into his shoulder. For once, Victor wasn’t happy to only have a vest of wyrm-scale armor. The cold, razor edge of that stone sword parted his flesh like a scalpel with an anvil behind it, cutting him to the bone and then some.

Victor stumbled back, pain lancing through his shoulder as his arm went numb, and he nearly lost his grip on Lifedrinker. Growling in frustration, he circled the wampyr, watching as the monster ran a long, pointy tongue over the edge of his sword and chortled wetly. Victor held his axe in two hands, using his left to support most of the weight while he waited for his Berserk healing to knit his muscles and tendons together. His failure to harm the creature with two good hits combined with the blow to his shoulder had sobered him, turning his feral grin into a frown of concentration.

More than the injury and Lifedrinker’s ineffectual cuts, Victor’s serious state of mind frustrated him. He inwardly railed at himself—why wasn’t he getting pissed? Why was he being so cautious? Just beat the fucker down! Still, despite his harsh self-talk, he circled and listened to the jeers and taunts of the gathered wampyrs. He had half a mind to turn his back on Dunstan, ignoring the giant wampyr while he waded through his “children” and gave Lifedrinker another bath in their blood. He knew better, though; if he took his eyes off that stone cleaver, he’d wind up losing his head.

Dunstan cracked his wings and charged forward again, and Victor met his flurry of blows with parries and dodges, ducking slashes and cleaves, catching them on his helm or knocking them aside. When they separated, he had no new wounds, but neither did Dunstan, and the wampyr didn’t look tired. He looked like he was just getting started. As the creature lifted his hacking sword high, preparing another charge, no doubt, Victor beat him to it, launching forward with a rage-attuned Energy Charge. He smashed into the enormous creature’s chest, Lifedrinker leading the way.

Victor had crashed into some big creatures before using that spell. Each time, his own magic sustained and protected him while he either sent the enemy sprawling or they somehow shielded themselves. This time was different. Dunstan didn’t shield himself, but neither did he fly backward from the concussion. He flapped his wings and stepped back, but that was the extent of the damage. Victor, for once, had met his match in bulk and strength. The wampyr was built like a diesel engine, solid, unyielding, and just as ugly.

While red, rippling Energy clouded the air in the wake of their crash, Dunstan lifted a hook-nailed foot and kicked Victor in the thigh, dragging his toe claws savagely downward. They ripped through his pants and his flesh, leaving burning tracks that instantly began to bubble and turn black with putrescence. The foul creature had used some disease-ridden Energy to corrupt Victor’s flesh. Victor stumbled, agony opening his pathways wide, making room for more rage as he compensated for the knot of fear he felt forming in his gut. Had he bitten off more than he could chew?

Lifedrinker bucked and vibrated in his hand, yearning to fly forth and strike the demonic wampyr, but Victor held her tight; she’d only get herself knocked away, out of his reach, unable to help him further. “Help me . . .” the thought struck a match of inspiration alight in his head, and Victor began to chuckle, annoyed and amused at himself for waiting, once again, for near disaster to think of or, worse, remember what he should have done all along.

“You laugh, meat?”

“Yeah.” Victor could already feel his robust vitality and Berserk regeneration battling the corruption in his leg. He could feel the dark, putrescence running down his leg as his body pushed it out, the flesh in his muscles knitting. “Did you call her a toy? My axe?”

Dunstan backed off a step, whipping his stone sword in great, whooshing arcs before himself. “That pitiful blade cannot harm me. I wonder, how long can you maintain this state? This berserk nature? I’ve fought your kind before—simple-minded rage casters. The berserker rage is certainly intoxicating, but it doesn’t last. You’re a big man, but you’re no wampyr. I’ll wear you down, and then we’ll sup on that rich blood, me and my kin. Worse, I’ll pay your kind back tenfold for the children you’ve slain tonight. Take those words to heart, fool; do they not bring despair?”

Victor flexed his thigh, feeling it respond without pain, then he lifted Lifedrinker and said, softly, for her alone, “Okay, chica, let’s kill this fucker. I’ll give you a boost.” Then, Victor cast Imbue Spirit, powering the spell with inspiration-attuned Energy. He sent a shard of his spirit into Lifedrinker, and she instantly reacted, flaring with white, heatless flames. Victor swung her left and right, and her cries of fury and hunger rang through the chamber, bodiless but savage and fierce. A wave of nausea and fatigue struck him as his power poured into Lifedrinker, but he quickly compensated, and then he changed his Sovereign Will boost from strength and vitality to dexterity and agility; it was time for Lifedrinker to work, and that meant he needed to land some more hits.

Victor watched as Dunstan observed his axe coated in ghostly flames. Then, as the great wampyr took in a deep breath, perhaps ready to shout something or release a spell, Victor used some of his abundant fear-attuned Energy and cast Energy Charge. This time, he aimed to the side, and as he ripped over the hard marble floor, he swung Lifedrinker with all his enhanced speed and accuracy, aiming for the giant creature’s chest. Dunstan was fast, though, and he managed to get his huge stone sword between Lifedrinker and his flesh. It was a move that may have saved him a mortal injury, but it cost him dearly.

Lifedrinker, tempered by Victor’s spirit, imbued with his very soul, his power, his potential, rang like a chime as she impacted that enormous, rose-colored blade and she bit clean through the stone, parting it like a chisel through sandstone. Dunstan roared in fury as he fell back, avoiding Victor’s follow-through, clutching the stump of his sword, shortened by two-thirds. Victor, as always, knew when to press an advantage, and he darted forward, weaving Lifedrinker through feints, hacks, thrusts, and cleaves like only a true aficionado of the axe might do. Dunstan, meanwhile, was hobbled, unable to use his broken sword effectively. He might have tried to get a new weapon from some storage container, but Victor’s incessant pressure wouldn’t allow it.

Lifedrinker began to take a toll, carving away his thick gray flesh and exposing the rotten, thick sludge that passed for Dunstan’s blood. Victor roared and laughed, reveling in his foe’s distress. “That’s right, chica! Carve that fucker like a turkey!” He drove the great wampyr back toward his throne, and as he exposed more and more of the meat beneath the creature’s flesh, his banner began to take its toll, sizzling the creature’s blood, muscle, and bone with the hot, glittering, yellow light of its bloody sun. Dunstan roared in frustration, gnashing his teeth, hissing, and swinging that truncated blade in futile attempts to stop Lifedrinker’s graceful, weaving cleaves.

Victor pushed forward, the dance of death upon him. He was in tune with Lifedrinker, aware of her blade, her handle, every hair’s breadth of her steel and wood. He could feel her life force, and she could feel his; they were joined in battle, and nothing Dunstan could do, no trick of Energy, no feat of strength or speed could save him from that slashing, weaving, flaming axe. The heat of her molten core was transformed, adding to the ghostly fire of Victor’s inspiration Energy. Each cut she made left a gaping, blackened wound that refused to heal, not only because of Victor’s banner but because of the melding of Victor’s and Lifedrinker’s spirits within the axe.

Defeated, broken, cowering, Dunstan groveled and scurried, trying to avoid Victor’s cuts with the bulk of his stone throne. When he finally realized there was no salvation, he cried out, “Slay this fool! Extinguish his light!” The frenzied susurration of rushing, gray-skinned creatures and flapping hairless wings distracted Victor and made him glance away for just a moment, and that was all Dunstan needed. He depressed some hidden catch on his throne, causing a hidden clockwork mechanism to rotate it, revealing a deep black hole down which the elder wampyr dropped, and then his children, in their hundreds, were upon Victor.

#

Kethelket looked at his haggard, bloodied people. They were gathered upon the banks of the Silver Sea, the dark, brooding fortress of Dunstan the Wampyr several miles away. The sun was still high in the sky, else they’d no doubt have been pursued further. The corpses of Dunstan’s thralls, the ones who’d chased them this far, littered the rocky beach. Further upslope toward the keep were dozens more of their corpses—the brave fools who’d tried to keep the Naghelli from fleeing forth.

He silently counted his kin, coming up with ninety-three. He turned to Offathi, “Well? What was your count?”

“Ninety-four, Lord.”

“Ninety . . . Oh, you counted me?”

“Aye, Lord.” She ducked her head, and Kethelket noted the bloody claw marks on her cheeks, the ripped and battered nature of her armor. Most of his people had been stripped of their dimensional containers. Most of them had damaged or missing armor. Most of them were using weapons he’d passed out from his own containers or taken from dead enemies. He wanted to take the fight to the wampyrs and their thralls. He wanted to slay them all and loot the keep, taking the price of his dead kinfolk in dark, tainted blood. Looking at their faces, the bloody wounds, and the abused state of their equipment, he knew it would cost them dearly to do so.

Even with Victor possibly distracting the worst of the wampyrs, perhaps even killing the lord of the keep, hundreds of fresh, well-armed troops were within those walls. He had no doubt that his people could take a heavy toll, perhaps killing them all, but he’d lose too many. No, he couldn’t do that, not when these ragged men and women represented nearly a third of all the Naghelli left in the world.

“Will he live?” At her voice, Kethelket whirled to face Victoria. He’d almost forgotten the strange, undead witch was there.

“He’s a survivor.”

“So, you think he will?”

“I wouldn’t bet against him.” Kethelket frowned, wishing there was some way he could tell how Victor was doing, some way he could sense him.

“I cannot feel him. He’s too deep,” Victoria said, uncannily guessing what he’d been thinking.

“Well, witch, what will you do?”

“I will follow you and await my release.” She smoothed the black lace bodice on her incongruous flowing gown. Her hands were pale as new snow, even more devoid of color than his own flesh. At least his skin flushed with exertion; hers was always the same: flat white, punctuated by dark veins here and there. She was an odd creature, sure, but she’d shown some honor this day, and if things went badly for Victor, Kethelket would uphold her bargain.

He nodded to her then called out, “Fanasti?”

“Aye, Lord?” The tall scout, sporting a new eyepatch, pushed his way through the huddled Naghelli to stand before him.

“Can you still work your Far Sight magic?”

“Aye, even one-eyed, I can see farther than any of you!” He managed a brave smile despite his obvious discomfort.

“Good. Study those thralls on the parapets yonder. Tell me if you see anything amiss with them.”

Fanasti nodded and turned, holding his two hands in front of his face and concentrating. A moment later, the air between his palms shimmered and turned opaque, taking on an almost liquid nature. As he watched through the strange air, he said, “I see a hundred or more on the walls. They patrol with heightened alertness. Many stand atop the gatehouse, watching us as I watch them. They don’t seem upset more than they ought to be, considering our escape and their comrades’ corpses littering the trail of our passage.”

Kethelket turned back to Victoria. “You’re sure they’ll react when Dunstan dies?”

“Aye. I’m not sure how severely it will affect them, but they’ll feel it. I’d be surprised if they didn’t wail with mad hysterics when it happens.”

Kethelket looked to the sun, then back to the keep. His people were tired, and they weren’t as fast as the wampyr on a good day. They needed a head start if he wanted them to find safety back at the Black Keep. Was he betting against Victor if he left now? “No,” he shook his head, “I have to think of my people first.”

“Pardon, Lord?” Offathi asked. She was probably the only person in this group of Naghelli who would question his mutterings, feisty scout that she was.

He put his hand on Fanasti’s shoulder. “You can stop watching. Spread the word. We fly soon.” Then he turned to Offathi, “I was saying we need to leave.”

“What about Lord Victor?” Her frown was profound, and he could see the tremor along her jaw. She wanted to scream or cry or argue, and she was battling with the impulse. To his surprise, it was Victoria who came to his aid.

“Lord Victor fights to give your people a chance at freedom, at life. If you go back to the keep or linger here too long, any sacrifice he makes, any heroic efforts, will have been wasted.”

Kethelket nodded. “She speaks true. Victor bade me assess my people and the defense of the keep and decide what to do. I have decided to get you all back to the Black Keep and to rally the Ninth to come here to finish off these ghoul-faced, blood-sucking batmen.” He raised his voice as he spoke, noting that many of his people were gathering close, trying to hear.

“But Victor . . .”

“We cannot flee!”

“No!”

“I will fight until my fingers cannot hold . . .”

The protests took many shapes, and the faces of his people, fierce and fiery, gave him pride, but Kethelket raised his voice and shouted them down, “Silence! We will return to the Black Keep, and the Ninth will venture forth to give Victor aid. If Lord Victor wishes to leave this place, do any of you think some wampyr vermin will stop him?” That brought silence to their lips as the Naghelli survivors looked at one another, waiting to see if anyone had a different answer. Kethelket knew what they all thought, however. “No,” he shouted, “If Lord Victor wishes to leave without killing every undead creature in that keep, then he will do so. He will break free and rejoin us. For now, though, we fly. We fly to safety because that’s what he’s bought for you, for us.”

Kethelket turned and nodded to Victoria, and then he spread his wings, and with a surge of primal, shadow-attuned Energy, he launched himself into the air. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to; he could hear his people following him. They may be exhausted, but they’d make haste, and, old ancestors willing, the Ninth would be free to march forth and finish the hard work Victor had started in that keep.