Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Pyria stood there in dumbfounded shock, gaping at him. Shanara also seemed to be suffering a minor nervous shutdown. The rest of the group dribbled out slowly, to see where to others had gone, and before long, the entire entourage was standing there gaping at the apparition that was Kalek. Then Shanara ran forward to meet him.

“Hey, watch out love, I’m stuck with fangs now,” he warned her.

“I don’t care,” she breathed back, and tackled him. Then in front of everybody, she kissed him. His cheeks turned almost black. Pyria, coming out of her shock, laughed. A vampyr blush. After a little, Shanara broke off, smiling in the moonlight.

“Sorry if I nipped you. I don’t think you’ll change, but you never know.” He said, grinning openly and unconsciously baring his fangs, which seemed even longer than before.

Everybody proceeded to crowd around him, greeting him, hugging him, shaking his hand, and even a fair amount of tears. Darius poked him to make sure that he wasn’t just a ghost, and then leapt at him, hugging him like a couple of childhood friends. After about a minute or so, Kalek managed to push off his teary-eyed companion. Pyria glanced at them both. They really were quite alike. They kind of moved the same way, they looked quite alike, and they were very close in height. But even their minds were alike. Pyria wasn’t even sure if they knew it, but they both seemed to carry that sort of silent code of honor, that sort of quick mind, and that strange sense of humor.

“Okay, now down to business. While I’ve been trying to catch up to you people, I’ve had the chance to look around. We’re definitely being looked for, and I’d suggest that when we go buy supplies, that we get new armor, cloaks, and such. I’ve still got the money that I stole from the church treasury. It should cover us for now.”

“We don’t care about that now. Come on, tell us the story. How’d you survive?” asked an eager-faced Selena.

“I didn’t survive. I died in that room. I visited both heaven and hell. And I’m still dead.”

“But how are you here now?” asked Valloran.

“I’m dead. I’m a vampyr, remember? I was two different bodies connected to the same mind. The human side died, quite painfully, too. But since the vampyr side is already dead, it kind of ‘survived’, if you’d like to call it that. So now I’m just another of the walking-dead, one of the Blood-Born.”

“Blood-Born?”

“A name for vampyrs. You have the Blood-Born; the Moon-Born, or the Lycans; the Re-Born, which is an overall name for all walking dead other than vampyrs; and finally the Hell-Born, or the demons on earth. All together, it all formed one ancient brotherhood of feared and hated creatures. There was a large argument quite a few centuries ago, and the orders broke apart. We’ve been at war ever since.”

“So, what’s with the new armor and stuff?”

“Well, someone,” he drawled, glaring teasingly at Shanara, “thought it would be sort of funny to leave me running around naked. So I had this custom fit, because wearing half slashed temple guardsman armor doesn’t really appeal to me. I’ll probably take parts of my old suit and use it to, shall we say, accentuate my armor.” He then turned to Darius. “You, my friend, might want to cannibalize my armor to add to your own, too. Your knight armor may be stylish, but someone has put all of our profiles out on alert. I’d suggest lacquering it, the royal seal on it might get us some free passage, but the color wont give us away. The rest of you might want to go for some new looks as well. Whoever it was, posted pretty good descriptions. But now, I’m sure that you’re all tired. I’ve got some things to take care of first.” And with that, he glided off into the dark woods, his black cloak trailing silently after him. After some excited talk, Shanara slowly climbed upstairs to her bed. Had it all been a dream?

Balesca the bartender was sitting relaxed behind the bar, carefully scrubbing a very dirty mug with a very dirty rag. After a while, he couldn’t distinguish which one was dirtier, so he put both on the counter and listened to the random conversations floating through the room. The tavern was almost empty, just a few people in the corner table, passed out from drinking, and the ladies sitting over at another table drinking ale idly. Llylderea was going from humorous stories to talking about business. She then proceeded to talk about how drunken Pagea must be, and that may be she had finally met her match in bed.

Balesca chuckled to himself. The two girls had been at each other’s throats for as long as Balesca could remember.

That is when Pagea walked in.

She had changed. Her skin was a horrid dead grayish white color, her veins black, and a dreadfully horrid grin on her face. Her hands flexed in the air, and Balesca saw the talons. The long, horrible, talons.

She cocked her neck to leer at Llylderea, and Balesca saw the puncture wounds. She hissed, and bared her fangs at her once rival.

And then Pagea promptly tore Llylderea to shreds. She slashed with her long talons, spilling out her rival’s intestines. And she latched on to her rival’s neck, feeding away. She then turned to the rest of the awestruck tavern.

Balesca closed his eyes and started to pray.

Some soldiers came to Balesca’s inn a few days later, looking for a drink, a bed, and potentially some companionship with the ladies. The door was slightly ajar, and Mykea, the captain of the group, nudged it open, drawing his short sword. The sick sweet smell of fresh decay assaulted their noses, and several gagged. Blood covered the walls, some a brownish-crimson color, mixed in with a dark black color. One of the prostitutes, (who might have been called attractive, Mykea couldn’t tell anymore) was ripped to ribbons, her upper torso hanging from the ceiling rafters and her entrails spilling out to the ground where the remains of her legs sat in a puddle of shredded and liquefied flesh and blood.

Needless to say, Mykea vomited.

As he was bent over, retching, he heard a terrible hiss from inside the bloody tavern. A chorus of shrieking and hissing joined in, and Mykea looked up from he lunch he had eaten a few hours before. A small group of people walked out from behind the bar, all bloody. Mykea ran up to them.

“Are you alright?” he asked a girl, who appeared to be about sixteen or so, huddling on the floor.

In seeming response, she turned, and sank her razor sharp fangs into the captain’s neck.

The next day, the group woke up rested. Kalek’s joyous, yet somehow sad return had brightened everyone up, even the generally grumpy Gyorn. The weird part was, that when they woke up, no one could find the steel-clad vampyr. Shanara slipped out the backdoor of the inn to see if he was by the horses, and indeed, there he was, clad head to toe, packing his things on to a behemoth of a beast.

“What is that thing?” she asked, startled by the beast. It looked like a normal horse, save for the fact that it was about two hands taller than any horse she had ever seen. It had a rather large cruel looking horn protruded from its head, and instead of hooves, the thing had claws not unlike a cat’s. The great silky black beast reared a little, and clawed at the air, baring four-inch long fangs.

“This, love, is what you get when a vampyr bites a horse. We call it a datkun, or dark unicorn. Interspecies bitings do strange things, and when you have a vampyr horse, it is able to stay in the sun. I have no clue what causes it. But anyway, the horse, being dead and never tiring, will go on pretty much eternally with out food or water. And, because I bit it, I have a bit of psychic control over it. Comes in handy sometimes.”

“You bit a HORSE?” she asked dubiously, remembering their kiss earlier.

Kalek, as if he could read what she was thinking, said, “Don’t worry, I cleaned my mouth with brandy,” he said, a chuckle slipping into his dead voice. “Oh, and here,” he said, handing her a small bundle. She opened up the cloth wrapped package, and beheld Kalek’s old spiked vambraces and gauntlets. “I had them resized a little so they’ll fit you, hopefully,” he said, as her face lit up.

Shanara’s face looked like a small child getting a gift on Karastide morning.

“Anyway, we should probably get on shopping. We should get our stuff, so we can try and sneak through the towns blockade when the sun sets tonight.”

“Blockade? What?”

“Oh, don’t you guys know? The entire town’s being blockaded. No one goes in or out. They’re looking for a group of people that fit our descriptions. That’s why we need to leave soon. Someone’s been putting up wanted posters since we busted the Ralik temple down south, and it looks like the authorities are curious too.”

“Who’s looking for us?”

“I don’t know. All I know is we’re fetching a pretty good price, alive and dead. Makes me kinda wonder who…” he trailed off. “Anyway, lets go and get the stuff. I’ll go tell everyone about the blockade and things.”

Kalek returned about half an hour later, carrying a jingling money purse in his hands. “Gotta love Darius. Such a nice chap to leave money lying around unattended like that.”

“You’re horrible,” Shanara said accusingly.

“Aw, c’mon, he’s like a brother to me. I’ll pay him back sometime.” And with that, he turned and walked into the marketplace. Shanara giggled a little, and thought about the two. They could be brothers…but that would be way too scary. Aside from their appearance, they were nothing alike. She pondered on this as they made their way to the blacksmith shop, where they met Darius, who was standing in his simple brown peasant smock and hose.

“Where’s the armor, Darius?” Kalek inquired. Darius pointed over his shoulder, and Kalek could see the knights once gleaming sky blue armor getting enameled a bronzish color, the royal seal outlined in red. The smithy’s assistant, who was enameling Darius’s armor, was soon finished.

“That’ll be three silvers, sir!” said the assistant in a piping little voice. Darius’s hands went to his belt, but came up empty. “Ummm…. I seem to have misplaced my money,” he said, flushing.

“Here, I’ll cover it,” said Kalek, drawing out three silver coins from Darius’ moneybag. Darius’ face was livid with anger. “I was going to pay you back, brother,” drawled Kalek, grinning deviously from beneath his hood. He paid the assistant, and the assistant gave the shining bronze armor to Darius, who put it on, and drew a burnt red cloak around him.

Kalek turned back to the assistant handing him Shanara’s scout armor. “How much to enamel this one, like that man’s?”

The assistant looked at the armor appraisingly. “I’d say about two coppers. What’s with you two getting your royal armor painted over?” the man asked curiously. Shanara stepped up. “We inherited it from one of his older relatives,” she lied, pointing at Kalek. “We didn’t much like the colors.”

“Speaking of which, what colors do you want?” the assistant said in his piping voice.

Kalek turned to look at Shanara, studying her face and hair. “What do you think about emerald green and black?” he asked.

When the sun started to set, the group returned to the inn, grinning over the spoils of the day. Kalek had bought Shanara a gorgeous sapphire blue velvet dress, lined with silver fur, and Darius, not about to be out done, presented Elsia with a similar dress made with emerald green velvet and gold chain lining the hem. He had also bought her a light elf made leaf-mail vest, to which she grudgingly put on, claiming she hated armor.

Selena, it seemed, had settled instead for a couple gold engraved knives. Cartius was busy talking to Valloran about his sore wallet, when Gyorn entered the room.

“Friends,” he sighed, “Well, I think this is the end of the journey for me. I’m just getting too damn old to run with you young kids these days. I’ve certainly had more fun and activity than this old body can handle, and I’m not sure how much longer this can last with me. You guys have a path you need to go, and I think I’ll just drag you down. So, I’ll wish you luck, I think I’ve found me a place to settle down here. There’s a dwarf community here, and, well, I’m staying. Best of luck, my friends, and cheers to you all. One last drink, and here’s my metal working spell,” he said, scribbling it on a piece of paper.

The rest of the group seemed a little taken aback by the sudden entrance and speech made by the dwarf, and he sighed again. “I know its sudden, but I don’t have too much of a use with you kids, it’ll help throw off the descriptions of the group, and dammit, I’m getting too old for this. I found a house, with a forge and smithy attached, and I’ve already started to pay for it. Here’s where I leave, you, feel free to visit. Dammit, I’m just too old. Selena, one last round of drinks. I’ll leave you my address, I’ve got to get going soon.”

Pops emanated, and drinks appeared around the room in hands, even as Selena stared at the dwarf.

Cartius sidled over to the dwarf, beer in hand.

“What changed your mind, Gyorn?” he asked, looking down at him.

“Well, son, I’ll be damned if I didn’t near break a hip down in that Ralik temple. And all I did was punch a man in the groin. I’m just getting old. Not to mention my saddle sores are bigger than a horses…”

“Oh,” Cartius said, cutting off what he was sure was about to be a disgusting obscenity. “Well, comrade, its been brief, but I am glad to have known you.”

The rest of the group circled to the dwarf, to say their goodbyes to the dwarfs sudden abandonment of the quest. There were a few tears, and a few drinks, and the dwarf left into the night, off to start a new life. About five minutes after the dwarf had left, and the room had died down to mumbling about the dwarf, a woman in a black dress with a horned staff burst into the room, and armed Ralik guards flooded in behind her.

“Take them,” she screamed.

The raid was over quickly. Valloran and Cartius had tried to fight, but two guards drew Pyria aside and trained their crossbows on her. They quieted down, and went with the guards, who were kicking them for the fun of it.

They were lead through the dimming streets of the town to the old barracks on the south side of town. They were thrown in ungraciously, as the Ralik soldiers laughed and jeered.

Selena looked at the woman who seemed to be in charge. She was of medium stature, with shoulder length blonde wavy hair, pale white skin, and yellow eyes with slits. “Who are-,” Selena asked, before being silenced by the woman’s stern hand. Shanara could see Cartius’ muscles tense in anger.

“You want to know who I am? I am called Jessinaria, you repugnant strumpet.” At this, Cartius snarled ferociously. All eyes were turned on him. Valloran seized his chance. His fists felled the two guards holding him, and he clashed their heads together and they sunk to the ground noisily. He drew their short swords, as six more guards surrounded him. He parried and slashed with grim accuracy, and one by one, the Raliks fell before him, as he stood in a gathering pool of blood. More Raliks, armed with crossbows, surrounded him. Valloran dropped his weapons. The Ralik captain’s finger tightened in the trigger guard.

“Wait!” shrieked Jessinaria, striding towards the bloody barbarian. “You’ll get to be an example to your friends about what happens if they don’t do what I tell them to.” With a wave of her hand, she picked him up, and he looked down at the floor in amazement. His seemingly weightless body drifted over until he stood right before her. Then, with an intricate gesture, a small red spark flew lazily from the end of her finger into Valloran’s leather armor and muscular chest. The barbarian let out a cry of pure agony, as he sank to his knees. He started coughing, and soon the floor in front of him was covered with his own blood. When it seemed he had no more to bleed, he vomited out a small red pulsating object about the size of Shanara’s fist.

“Holy crap,” Kalek said in amazement. “You don’t see that everyday.” He looked up to the heavens. Well, old friend, I hope you’re drinking with the gods, right now.

Looking around, he saw that most of the Ralik’s were looking at Valloran, who had just coughed up his own heart. “Now!” Kalek whispered to Shanara.

He easily overcame the distracted guards, who were still staring at the twitching bloody body before them. Kalek’s taloned hands disappeared into their backs at about kidney level, and he sank in to his shoulders until his hands reappeared out of their necks. They slumped over, and Kalek grabbed a crossbow.

“For Valloran!” he yelled, firing his bolt at Jessinaria. Jessinaria ducked behind a pillar, as the rest of the Ralik guards turned at his battle cry. Shanara grabbed a man by the shoulders and kneed him in the groin with the knee spike Kalek had given her. The man sank to the floor, crying.

“Shanara!” came a yell off to her left, and she turned to see her two sheathed curved short swords fly into her hands. She slung them on her back and drew them, cutting down to a man’s navel in one fluid motion. Her left sword sunk into another mans chest, and she twisted, savoring the man’s screams of agony. That, she thought to herself, was for the silent barbarian that lay in a puddle of his own blood on the ground before her. That’s when her mouse whimpered in her ear. Fine, she thought, here you go. She snapped, and her mouse morphed into gryphon. Have fun, she thought, as the gryphon dived into battle shrieking.

Pyria was enjoying herself immensely. She whacked and slashed away with her metal spear, but as she didn’t practice with it very much, she soon went back to just torching any unlucky soldier dumb enough to get in the way of someone who was bathing themselves in fire.

Cartius had turned in his parrying dagger and rapier for a long broadsword and a sword breaker knife. His sword cleaved great chunks out of the Ralik guards, cutting through their leather armor like butter, as his sword breaker slipped in and out of people, drawing blood with its jagged edge. The Raliks seem to be generally untrained, he noted, as his two blades flew in and out of their rapidly dying bodies.

Selena, not taking enough time to strap on all of her knives (the guards had almost gone into shock when they started disarming her, they were sure they couldn’t find them all), drew a dagger from seemingly nowhere. She dove in, slashing, jumping, kicking, jabbing, stabbing, and breaking anything within a ten-foot radius. Raliks on the sidelines jeered at their falling comrades as they were cut down by a petite five-foot woman. Then they noticed the blood spilling out of their chests, and they got a bit distracted.

Elsia had her bow drawn, her hands a blur. Letting her hands fire with their muscle memory, she let her elven eyes perceive everyone around her. There were two men right behind her, moving slowly so they could surprise her, a couple off to her back right loading bolts in their crossbows, and three more coming from her far left. Not giving any sign that she knew of them, she kept firing into the group in front of her, as her vines snaked down her legs and across the bloody floor. Her right vine snuck smoothly up her one of her rear attacker’s legs, wrapped around his body, and came down the other leg, going back up the other attackers left leg and coming back down. Her left vine did the same for the three coming at her from the left. Then when the vines were ready, she ducked down to avoid a crossbow bolt, and willed out the thorns. The vines punctured and squeezed, forcing the blood to shoot out of her would be attackers. She quickly dispatched the two crossbow men, and went back to her mass slaughter of the main group.

Damn, she loved doing that.

Kalek was having fun. He had never fed on so much at one time in his life. His helm lay next to his axe, and his sword was on his back, as he slashed with his talons and bit away.

Through his blood stained face and eyes, he could see the dark sorceress stretching out her hand to Cartius. Feeling that no possible good could come out of what was about to happen, he dropped the body he was feeding on and grabbed a dead man’s loaded crossbow. He fired the bolt at Jessinaria, and she vanished in a puff of black smoke. “Nice try, my little vampyr!” her voice drifted through the air. With another explosion of smoke, she appeared next to Pyria. Pyria turned around, her body bursting into a full shield of white flame. Jessinaria surrounded herself with a shadow blacker than midnight. Pyria extended her arms, and a whirling tornado of fire shot out, only to be blocked by the impregnable shadow. In turn, the shadow extended out to rake Pyria with black claws. Pyria staggered from the blow. Then Darius had an idea.

“Selena, throw me a bottle of liquor! Something about 180 proof!”

“You want a drink now?” she said, fighting three men at the same time.

“Just do it!” he yelled, and a bottle appeared in his hand. He took the bottle, and flung it into the shadow. The bottle got in about three feet of the dark sorceress’s shadow shield, when it hit Pyria’s burst of fire. A violent explosion shattered the bottle, and flaming liquid flowed through Jessinaria’s shield. There was a loud screech of pain and the sorceress disappeared.

The Raliks, seeing their leader leave them, lost confidence. Closing in, the warriors were able to slowly push them back into a corner. The twenty remaining Raliks fought half-heartedly, and Selena lit a fuse on another bottle of alcohol.

“This is for Valloran. He was one of the only tenants who ever paid his rent on time.” With that, she threw the bottle over into the group, listening with grim satisfaction as the soldiers roasted in their armor.

They stopped to pay their final respects to Valloran, set his body alight, and left the burning building.

They quietly made their way through the silent streets, Kalek leading them back to the inn with his night vision. They weaved in and out of alleys, until they reached a marketplace. There they saw Jessinaria (with, Darius noted smugly, burn marks), sitting in the abandoned market.

“Have fun with these,” she said, grinning deviously.

Suddenly all of the doors up and down the streets, and screaming families, followed by legions of the undead. In the midst of the screaming and cries of panic, they could hear the Dark magician’s insane giggling, as Jessinaria disappeared in a puff of smoke. The screams of panic soon changed to screams of agonizing death, as the zombies caught their living prey.

“Aim for the heads!”

They formed a protective ring, and Shanara and Elsia started loosing arrows into the undead mob. Cartius was lobbing exploding bottles of alcohol, as Pyria lobbed fireballs. It wasn’t enough, however, for soon the undead had reached the group. Kalek and Darius set in with their broadswords, moving in sync, slicing their way through the massive throngs of the dead.

“Pyria, block them off!!” Kalek yelled over the screams. Darius and Kalek backed up, and a sudden all of flame blocked off the approaching zombies.

They slowly regrouped; making sure that none of the zombies could make it through the fire. “Look!” shouted Darius, and the group turned to see what he was pointing at.

Gyorn was trying to escape on a horse with a young blonde girl he had apparently tried to save. Long, decomposing arms reached out and grabbed Gyorn and dragged him off of his horse. Zombies descended on him. He attempted to fight, but was overwhelmed.

“Go on with out me!” he cried out the girl on the horse. She turned looked fearfully back at the fighting dwarf, as he butchered his way through the dead legions. Then an arm struck her in the chest. With a gasp, she fell from the saddle into the hands of the waiting dead. Her dying screams echoed out as the zombies bit into her flesh. There was a loud gurgle and she stopped screaming.

“Let’s head back to the inn.” Darius said, retching.