The Last Guardian

  ***

  The caves were extensive and pitch black. The villager’s guess had been spot on. There were spatters of blood on the muddy floor, and ominous stains on the streaked limestone walls. Aginol stationed four knights with hooked nets at what the villagers assured him was the only exit, and the rest he took with him. Their torches cast lurid shadows on the walls, and despite the blessings of Yanos, fear knotted their stomachs. These creatures were reputed to be tremendously dangerous opponents, and there was a good chance that some of them would not return home alive.

  The passages were narrow and twisting, with few open spaces. “That’s better,” said Aginol, as he moved ahead, “then the creature cannot slip by us.” The caverns writhed their way into the guts of the mountain, and they followed. Much time passed.

  They entered a large chamber, with a pool of water in the floor. Their torches were orange stars reflected off the surface of the water. The knights spread out in the chamber, many feet trampling the mud. Hollow echoes sounded off the walls. Aginol held up his hand and whispered “Nath Alleion.” His palm glowed like a tiny sun, and he shone it about the chamber, revealing it to be empty. Then he played it over the water.

  “There!” gasped one of the knights, pointing. The pool was full of ice-white corpses. The vampire had brought its victims here, and for some reason unknown, had decided to store their remains within this cold pool.

  A knight bent down close to the pool, staring. A beautiful high-cheeked maiden lay dead next to the edge, her long hair spread like strands of gold under the surface of the water. “ ‘Ware,” snapped Aginol at him. But it was too late.

  The corpse’s eyes snapped open and a slender arm burst out of the surface, clamping impossibly strong fingers over the knight’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged, and there were gristly snapping sounds as the creature’s fingers crushed his neck. The woman’s face was distorted in a fanged snarl as she emerged from the pool to feed. Most of the knights recoiled in horror, but one had the presence of mind to thrust his blazing torch into her face. The scream was ear-shattering, and it grew worse when Aginol hurled the contents of a crystal bottle over the creature and into the pool.

  Consecrated water, containing the essence of a thousand prayers toYanos.

  The vampire’s flesh bubbled up and it thrashed about in agony as the holy water devoured it. The corpses in the water likewise started to bubble, and it was clear that they too had been infected with the vampire’s foul essence. It took about several minutes for the waters to stop seething and become still again.

  “Clearly the beast has decided to begin creating progeny,” said Cornac.

  “Right you are. These creatures need not breathe, and care not for the cold. Clever of it to hide its spawn in the pool,” said Aginol.

  “Was … was that not the beast, Anlos?” asked a knight.

  “I doubt it. That woman was wearing the garb of a villager,” replied Aginol, casting his radiant palm this way and that, illuminating every nook and cranny, “yet this is a dead end. Where did the creature get to?”

  “There!” The cry went up.

  From the blackness of the cavern roof two pinpricks of orange light could be seen reflecting their torches. Then the pinpricks blinked.

  Things happened extremely fast after that. Aginol’s light revealed a figure in ornate black and gold hose and cloak clinging limpet-like to a stalactite. No sooner had he lit it up than it swung off and plummeted into the midst of the knights. Immediately they tried to use their torches to drive it back, but the master vampire was far too strong for that. With its bare hands it ripped and clawed into them. Several knights were sent sprawling, trailing crimson; another toppled into the pool with his face ripped off. Sparks flew as a knight slammed his torch into the creature’s back. Knights flew as it slammed its arms into them like clubs. A knight stabbed it in the back with a silver dagger; the vampire whirled around, a ghastly grin on its face. Pulling the dagger from its back the creature bit down on it, and spat a crescent of silver out in disdain. Then it stabbed the dagger into the knight’s face with a blur of motion.

  The knights stepped back, aghast. The vampire was far stronger than they had imagined such creatures to be. The total silence in which it fought was even more unnerving. It grinned a grave-grin at them.

  Aginol and Cornac pushed their way to the fore. Cornac gripped his silver flanged mace tightly, and Aginol held his glowing palm before him like a lamp. His other hand was behind his back. The vampire glanced over the two warrior-priests with disdain. “More silver? That won’t work,” it said, cocking its head like a mad jester. The voice it had was cultured and strangely accented.

  Aginol put forth his will, and his palm flared up as bright as the sun. Indeed, it was the sun, being the magically stored sunlight of a week’s worth of rituals he had undergone in order to prepare for this moment. The creature shrieked and threw its hands before its face, the skin smoking in the light. Cornac slammed his mace into it, and the sharp flanges drove into its heavy flesh. Smoke erupted from the wounds, because that mace was hollow and filled with a frangible container of consecrated water that would break under impact. Aginol drew his hand out from behind his back, and expertly cast a weighted, hooked net over the vampire. The other knights began pummelling it with their torches. It screamed like a burning cat.

  “Hold!” shouted Aginol, and he drew forth a heavy chain of cold-beaten iron. He and another knight soon had it trussed up at its feet and arms. An ox could not have broken those links.

  “Anlos, are you sure that this is the right thing to do? We came to kill it,” Cornac said.

  “We will. But the villagers must see it die, for the glory of Yanos,” Aginol replied, putting a hood over the creature’s face.

  The knights carried their dead and wounded out of the caverns, and made camp in the gorge. Aginol ordered a great pile of wood to be heaped up, and the creature chained atop the pile. “If at any time it threatens to break loose, the nearest knight must light the pyre immediately,” he said.