Heward kicked the door at the point where the latch held it shut, and with a heavy thud, the door flew open. He moved into the room beyond first.

  It was a plain square space with earthen floors, but enclosed by wooden walls. Two coffins lay on the ground; one closed, one open and empty. The ceiling was very high. A rope ladder hung down from a hatch, which appeared to be the only other way out.

  “Should I open it?” Heward indicated the coffin.

  “I wouldn’t.” Vero entered the room and took off her pack to find a skin of oil. She spread it over the closed coffin and then tossed down her torch to set it alight.

  “The other one must have gone this way.” Heward attempted to climb the ladder – already a difficult proposition in plate armor – but he attempted to approach it like a normal ladder rather than from the side, so the rung his feet settled on kept sliding out from beneath him.

  Above him, the hatch opened and there was the sound of something like a heavy cauldron being moved.

  “Heward, let go at once!”

  The templar did as he was ordered and fell flat onto his back, he had not climbed high enough for serious injury. Vero grabbed him under the arms and pulled him away, moments before a torrent of boiling water fell down from the hatch. It rolled across the floor and hissed where it met the flames.

  The closed and flaming coffin burst open.

  An evil looking skeletal figure of a man leapt forth and tackled Vero to the ground. She was startled at first, but her opponent appeared unschooled in unarmed combat, and only tried to gnash at her neck. Vero easily placed a body lock around it’s waist by using a triangle clasp with her legs. This allowed her to control their position. When he lunged for her, she evaded to the side and trapped his head under her arm.

  “His spine! Sever it!” Vero kept the vampyre held in place, but even with its power sapped by daylight, she could tell that it was stronger than she.

  Heward regained his feet and his weapon. “What if I cut through him and harm you?”

  “I’m wearing a chain shirt, he’s not! Do it, now!”

  Heward swung vertically towards them. Vero braced herself, but to her dismay, she saw the templar pull his blow at the last moment. He split the vampyre’s spine, but did not cut deeply enough into its flesh. The creature went limp, but it would recover again in moments.

  Above her, Vero could see two more men, who looked like more of the vampyre’s cultists, climbing down the ladder from the hatch. She sloughed off the paralyzed thing and retrieved her own weapon.

  “It’s not dead! Take off the head before it recovers!” she ordered.

  Heward moved to decapitate the monster, but it raised its arm to block the strike with its forearm bone at the last moment. Vero had to hope that he could finish the thing on his own, and turned to face their new opponents.

  The first man down the ladder was still several feet from the ground. She cut him along the hamstring and he fell with a shout.

  She tried thrusting upwards at the second man, but he climbed up out of reach. Then, in a rash undertaking, he released the ladder and dropped straight to the ground. The fellow landed vertically and snapped his ankles, he also fell.

  The vampyre threw Heward back, but rather than follow up its advantage, it descended on its own ally in bloodlust. It held the man down and wildly tore open the legs where Vero cut him. She ignored them and delivered the coup de grace to the second man where he lay, before he could recover.

  Heward impaled the vampyre through the back. Yet, invigorated by the spilled blood, the creature took little notice. It knocked the templar aside with an arm whipped at inhuman speed. The sheer force of the impact sent him across the chamber, and he did not rise.

  By Luna’s grace, the bloodlust was so thick over the monster’s mind that it did not chase its attack on Heward, nor turn its attention to Vero. It only gorged itself on the freshly flowing life of its two former thralls. Heward’s sword was still stuck through its chest.

  Vero carefully slunk back to avoid attracting the vampyre’s attention. She approached it from behind, taking no rush. The creature would be utterly absorbed for minutes yet, but she would only have one strike. It must be definite.

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  Vero swung for the neck, and her aim was sure. With all her muscle behind it, the blade carved nearly the whole way through, but could not quite sever the spinal cord entirely.

  She wasted no time; the dead flesh was already trying to knit itself back together as she tore her weapon free. There were moments before the spine was reunited, and her enemy could move again.

  She swung the blade once more. Her own sword would have snatched off the head at a single stroke without question. The oasis steel did its job on the second swing.

  Vero kicked the head away to be sure it was severed completely, and rolled the body back into the fire. Then she turned her attention to Heward and pulled him to his feet. The monster hit him with strength enough to dent his steel breastplate. A direct blow would have shattered his ribs, but it seemed whatever his injuries, he could still stand.

  Once Heward was up, she was already moving to the ladder. “There’s still at least one more! If they have a covered wagon, it could still escape!” She ascended first, simultaneously demonstrating the correct way to climb a rope ladder.

  “Aye, Lady.” He was still catching his breath and retrieving his sword, but she heard him behind her.

  The trapdoor was closed again, and Vero feared it would be barricaded. It was not, and she thrust it open with a single strong shove. They came up into a set of stables. As Vero feared, there was a covered wagon being prepared for departure. There were two more figures she could see, although there might be more inside the wagon.

  The first figure was an armed man, as the others they had encountered so far. He shouted commands to his companion. “I’ll hold them here! Take our master to the Palatine at once!”

  The second figure was a woman, a pleasure thrall by her attire. She leapt into the driving position on the wagon to put her orders into effect.

  Vero clashed blades with the first man. “Heward! Stop the girl!”

  Her foe was the most skilled duelist they faced yet. Vero suspected he was the vampyre’s personal body guard. With her own sword, the battle still would have been an easy one. As it was, already fighting her own fatigue, she was hard pressed to outmatch him.

  The woman screamed when Heward pulled her away from the wagon.

  That was enough. Her enemy’s attention wavered, even momentarily. Vero’s did not, and she ran him through.

  Heward was unhitching the horses from the wagon. A wise precaution, but he turned his attention away from the pleasure thrall to do so.

  The woman drew a thin stiletto from her bodice, and searched for a place to put it between the plates of Heward’s armor.

  “Fra!” Vero shouted.

  Heward heard her call in time to turn and catch the woman’s hand in the air. Vero cut her down from behind.

  The templar was shaken by what he witnessed, until Vero reminded him, “She’s only a thrall like the others! We still need to find the vampyre!”

  Outside the stable door she could see the thin sunlight already fading. Vero threw open the flap covering the wagon entrance. She noticed only faintly, the blood already dripping from the interior.

  Inside were pieces of a half dozen bodies, lying in a crimson pool. From their garb, it looked like more pleasure thralls; mostly female, two males.

  Both Vero and Heward were uncomprehending, until a sunken figure launched itself at them from under the gore. She and Heward fell back at once.

  There was nothing left of humanity about this monster. It had ragged talons in place of hands, and a mouth layered with sharks’ teeth. It was hard to tell beneath the coating of red viscera, but its skin looked like tough reptile hide. The eyes smoldered red.

  Her muscles already ached. Vero wished once more to have her own weapon back. Even with an ally at her side, the sun was now almost gone. She held grave reservations about their chances.

  Vero tightened her grip on her sword. The creature advanced, and she moved to meet it without hesitation.

  “Stop.” The command was spoken quietly, but with force. Vero was not the target, but she could feel the power in the word, and it raised the hair on her arms and legs.

  “Stop.” The command was repeated.

  Blocking the monster’s path was Alexius.

  “Stop.” The third time he spoke the word, the vampyre fell to its knees. The wretched creature attempted to escape by crawling away into a dark corner, but Alexius calmly walked after it until there was nowhere left to go.

  Vero looked to Heward, who returned to her side.

  “What is the priest doing here?” There was no way they had gone unobserved, but Heward whispered to Vero regardless.

  She whispered back. “I’m not certain, I think we should be ready for anything.”

  “Agreed.”

  Vero and Heward approached the pair carefully with weapons ready. Alexius knelt and placed the vampyre’s head on his lap. Bloody tears ran down the thing’s face. Alexius stroked the monster’s hair with shocking tenderness.

  “Enough, rest now.”

  “No. No, no, no…”

  “It is finished.”

  Then, to Vero’s utter shock, the body of the vampyre desiccated. It held up one hand in horror and watched as it collapsed to ashes. Then a look of peace crossed over the monster’s face, and its entire form disincorporated itself into a pile of dust. Alexius stood up and turned to face them.

  Vero kept her weapon ready. Heward looked uncomfortable to bear arms against a priest, but he stayed ready beside her.

  “What did you just do?” she asked.

  Alexius appraised them with the beatific smile of a child saint. “I gave him the peace which once eluded him.”

  Vero held her ground and filled her mind with mantras. “What are you?”

  “A priest.”

  “Have you ever seen, or read of, a priest exhibiting powers such as this?” Vero addressed Heward, but kept her eyes fixed on Alexius. Not on his own eyes- that would be much too dangerous. She watched his posture, which for the moment, remained totally at ease.

  “Unholy creatures fear pure holy water and avoid consecrated ground, but I've never heard of a priest destroying a vampyre by word alone.”

  “Nor have I. What are you?” If they battled it would use its words to control her, she would try to strike off its head at once. That was always the safest way to deal with an unknown threat. It would be likely – though not certain – to kill it, no matter what it’s true nature was.

  “A prophet?” Alexius suggested. “My lady, I assure you that I am a friend, and that I mean you no harm.”

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