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The morning's finally come, if you only consider it morning when you can actually see the sun; if you do, we had an extremely long night. The sun's been in the sky for a few hours now, but the heavy clouds are only just beginning to lift. We found the path again and now we're on our way to Kierin city. Apparently, the fall has come early here, stripping the leaves from the trees, but not leaving any snow; this is why the trees looked so foreboding last night.
We had breakfast while the clouds still hung heavy in the sky, so we were off by the time they had lifted. Last night's dream still troubles me, although I can see that the only other one here who is still worried about it is Jana. The fears of the others have left with the worst of the cloud cover. We are making good headway now that we can see the path clearly and actually be able to match up the map with some landmarks so we know we're heading in the right direction.
We are back on our horses again, exchanging jokes about the previous night, as if it wasn't so bad. In hindsight I can see how silly it was for us to fear the night forest and the mist; although, I can't deny the feeling I had had of being watched, nor the nightmare. Starlight senses my uneasiness and slows down so I'm at the back of the group with Jana. We exchange glances, each knowing what the other is thinking. Jana speaks first.
“There's a little more to the dream than what you told us, isn't there.” It wasn't a question, but I knew she expected a response.
“Yes,” there's a short moment of silence as I think about what to say.”It was mostly things I couldn't tell them, mostly you being in you're true form, racing the horses. But there was something else. I couldn't explain it at the time. A horrible, twisting feeling of dread, almost knowing, but not. It was like something had happened that I couldn't remember, like I just blacked out for a whole hour and it was suddenly the end of the world, or something like that. I still can't quite explain it.” I close my eyes and shake my head, at a loss for words.
“Wow! I don't think I've ever heard of something like that, maybe you should send a message to the kingdom telling them your dream. Maybe they can help.”
I look up at this, remembering something, “Wait, there's more. When I got to the tree circle, I saw all of you dead. When I looked down at Seth, he said something to me. He asked me why I did that to you all. That's when I looked and saw I was holding the dagger and blood stains on my clothes. And when I looked up, there was a mirror in front of me with the image of a vampire laughing at me. She had blood around her mouth. I don't know what it means. I'm scared.” I'm starting to cry a bit, the memory still hurts. Jana looks at me with her mouth open, at a loss for how to respond to such a thing. This could just be a nightmare induced by the darkness and fog of the night; at least, I hope that's all it is. My dreams have been known to reflect my fears.
The landscape has changed considerably since last night. The forests look more welcoming; I've even seen a few animals preparing for winter, scampering around the bushes and trees; it's very peaceful. The landscape makes me think of home, and how much I miss Justin. At this time of year we would be harvesting the fruit and nuts from the forest trees, preparing for the snow that would arrive in a month or two, or we would be sending the summer birds south for winter. I really miss home.
The road is small and long, but is getting wider as we progress. Eventually we come up to the main road, paved with cobblestones. The sun is out, but there is a distinct chill in the air, heralding the coming winter. We see few birds as most of them have already headed North before they make the long journey South to the Summerlands. We dismount from our horses at this point, to give them a rest and stretch our legs a bit.
Then, in the distance, we see the tops of Kierin city against the horizon. The buildings are very beautiful, even from this distance, with the sun shining on them. We will be there by tomorrow evening at the latest, assuming we have no trouble on the way.
As night starts to descend, we set up camp among the few trees left by the roadside. It's hard to believe such a beautiful looking place would be over run by vampires, but so we've only seen it during the day, and not even up close. Everyone is sitting around the fire sharing jokes as they eat their supper. All of a sudden, we hear bloodcurdling screams coming from the direction of the city, and we're all reminded of why we had to come here in the first place. Just as quickly as they started, the screams stop, leaving behind an erie silence that leaves us feeling chilled to the bones despite the warm fire. I can only hope that we are far enough away from the city to avoid meeting one of the bloodsucking murderers tonight. I wouldn't want to have to diagnose the problem aloud too soon, lest the others get suspicious of how much I really know.
I'm finding it hard to sleep tonight. The thought of what horrors are happening in that city right now are causing me to fear having another nightmare like last night's, which causes me to remember last night's nightmare, making sleep even harder to come by. I was glad when my watch shift came around; I was up even before Ethan even had the chance to rise to wake me. At least on watch I won't have to pretend I'm asleep, and it's easier to distract myself from the unnatural silence and the horrors of my thoughts at the time. I try remembering the past events that lead up to today, but since elven thoughts tend to process faster than humans I will eventually run out of things to think about that are unrelated to the stuff of nightmares. I concentrate on the stars, who look so different in a more southerly sky, until I realize that there are clouds in the sky blocking out most of the more distant stars. I start to think about my ancestors from the skies. What must it be like to be a pure star in the night sky? How would the world look from that vantage point? Will I someday be able to prove myself fully worthy to join them, in their silent vigil over the sunless times, when I die? I wonder how clouds that block out all the stars affect their abilities.
The thoughts of the sky are lulling me to sleep when I realize it's past my time to wake Mella for watch. I manage to wake her and curl back into my sleep roll before my eyes close in sleepy ecstasy. But, of course, no sooner do I drift into the world of dreamers than I'm suddenly wrenched from it by the sound of a woman screaming no more than a bowshot away. We're all up and running towards the source of the scream when a second one rips through the night's stillness. I have this powerful sense of evil being near, too near for my liking, and a smell of blood laughs on the edge of my senses.
We come to a large clearing in the trees to find a gruesome sight, a male vampire (most likely type A) standing over the bloodied figure of a woman, no older than twenty-five, who is clearly still alive and in a great deal of pain. Blood drips from the monster's claw-like fingers and, more disturbingly, his mouth. He turns to regard us, then turns his mouth into a wicked smile, smelling the instant fear in us, and seeing the obvious hesitation in our responses. None of us move for a second until the sound of a pained groan from the woman, upon which Jana and I snap into action. She pulls out her bow and a powerful looking arrow from her quiver and points it at the vampire while I run and block it off from the woman. The others just stand where they are, not sure of what they should do in a situation such as this. Although they've heard of vampires in the lore books at the haven's library, they had never practiced how to handle one before; they didn't even believe vampires were real until now.
“Okay, monster,” shouts Jana in a voice that totally belies the shock she had shown only moments before. “I'm only going to ask this once. What are you doing here?”
Noticing the lack of fear in Jana's voice and seeing to determination in my eyes, he drops the grin and leaps towards the others, seeking an easy target. Seeing the vampire coming towards them finally shook the paralysis from their limbs as Seth began to shout orders. “Flank it. Don't give it the chance to get away.”
Everyone does as Seth says quickly enough that the vampire is blocked by Seth's longsword, which he is handling much better than last time I saw him wield it, probably because of the adrenaline that's probably pumping through everyone at a rapid rate right now. The vampire slinks back to the centre of the ring.
“Go ahead,” he challenges us, “kill me. I won't tell you anything.” I notice that his eyes are a deep red, the colour ones eyes usually take on when under hypnotism or mind control, not the normal bright red colour of a vampire's bloodlust. I slowly lower my sword and place it on the ground, much to everyone's shock.
“Sapphire, what are you doing?!” Seth yells. “That thing's going to kill you.”
Instead of answering Seth, I slowly walk toward the vampire and start whispering in the elven language. The vampire snarls, then doubles over while clutching his head in pain, screaming. Suddenly, it stops. Whatever was controlling the vampire is now clear from his mind. He crumples to the grass with a loud groan and I bend down to make sure he isn't harmed. Seth, Mella, and Ethan all stare at me with a huge question written on their faces, until the woman tries to get up.
“Stop! Don't hurt him!” She screams. “It's not his fault. He's under some spell.”
I turn to her and notice the fresh wound on her neck. “Don't worry, I'm just making sure he's not hurt. Did he bite you? Let me tend your wounds.”
“No, he didn't bite me. We were just walking through the woods when he suddenly started acting strangely.”
This time Seth was the one to speak, while I bandaged up the woman's wounds, which were surprisingly shallow. “What were you doing in the woods with him at night? You did realize he was a vampire didn't you?”
“His name's Alastor, and of course I knew he was a vampire. We were trying to escape the city. The other vampires, the monsters, were putting the whole place into lockdown, no one gets in or out. We were lucky we could get away in time.”
I ask the next question. “Why were you with him in the first place, though?”
“I was trying to get away to my cousin's inn at Yeste. I knew I couldn't get away by myself and he was the only one who could have helped me escape. He wanted out just as badly as I did.”
She has a cousin in the border town, could she be... “Your name wouldn't happen to be Lorin, would it?”
“Yes! How in the realm did you know?”
“We've met your cousin,” says Jana, walking up to us to see how things were going. “He sent us to come find you and try to save your city.” Mella and Ethan are busy tying up Alastor, clearly not paying attention to the conversation we were having with Lorin.
“You won't be able to do that, not now. The vampires must have known you were coming because the city is now completely impregnable, day AND night, until they know you're gone. Stop tying him up will you?! He won't hurt you, not that he can after what you've done to him!”
Ethan and Mella stop and look to Seth for guidance. “Untie him. He obviously can't do us any harm in the state he's in. By the way, Sapphire, what exactly did you do to him?” He looks at me suspiciously, eyebrow raised in question. Although I knew this question was coming, I still wasn't prepared for it.
“I just... uh... lit some herbs, to clear his mind of whatever it was that was wrong with him. He had a look that told me that he wasn't being himself.” Seth just stares at me with a look I can't read. This is going to take a while to live down.
 Girl of the Dragons · Tue Nov 30, 2010 @ 01:55am · 0 Comments |
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