Darelove's fingers trembled perilously as they tucked the ends of Silveredge's braids underneath the rest of the braided hair.
"That should hold," she breathed wearily as she allowed herself to drop down from her elbows. "Shouldn't slide out."
"Thank you," Silveredge whispered in response without turning around. She had already wrapped her chain around her so that it caught on its own spikes, but she had used the ribbon that had been holding her hair to tie it to her tunic as well, so that she could be more certain not to lose it in her attempt to breech the illusive mage's fortress.
"We're not going to make the jump," Smokedog admitted. "Go without us."
Silveredge turned around and looked from Darelove to Smokedog. Unable to come up with a positive response for the situation, she simply took her pouch from her side and held it out. After a few moments of looking at each other with a phantom sadness that moved like a deep river between them, Smokedog reached out and took it.
"Go," he whispered fiercely. "Finish it- for your pack."
"It might be wendi-" Silveredge repeated again, biting her lips afterward as Smokedog shook his head.
"Just- get in there and make 'em pay for this," was all the male would reply.
The Shadar-kai took a deep breath, turning her attentions back toward the matter at hand. Then suddenly, before anyone had any time to rethink the situation, she pushed her body up from the hill on which all three of them had been lying flat. Her lithe legs got to work, pushing hard against the ground faster and faster, until Silveredge could see the ground of the fortress beyond the illusive stone walls. Pushing out one fierce breath, she leaped like a gazelle off the very pinnacle of the hill, turning her slender body in the air so that her back arched over the crumbling wall that separated her from Vhalan, Niku and Svaentok.
And to the sorrowful eyes of the archer and her werewolf companion, it seemed that the entire fortress disappeared. Again.
"That's it," Darelove sighed, the sickness in her lungs rattling ominously. "Can't believe we're letting-"
"We can't," Smokedog reasoned. "I should've gone back with you before."
"No," Darelove replied, shaking her damp head slowly. "We promised... I wanted..."
Smokedog closed his eyes momentarily, unable to watch her struggle to finish her thought. He longed to put her on his back, shift forms and run with her, but hands that could hardly braid hair would certainly lose hold of thick fur. With one last look toward the fortress- or the space where it had been- he picked his clan sister up and began walking back toward the Urmlaspyr border.
Silveredge tore a deep breath from the chilly air around her. She lay flat on her back, and though she was certain that she'd landed on her feet, her spine ached miserably. When she sat up, the dizzy spinning of the view around her convinced her that she had hit the ground much more dangerously than she'd planned. Careful fingers noted a few possible bruises on the places one would expect after such an accident- the shoulder blades, the base of the spine, the backs of the hips and ankles. It didn't seem as though her chain had harmed her in the fall at all, which was surprising. She moved her tongue around and found that- miraculously- she hadn't bitten it. Briefly smirking at that piece of luck, she began to search for a way into the fortress.
Just as she'd found and pushed herself into a doorway low on the right side of the place, four skeletons pulled themselves up through the stone floor before her. She rapidly prepared her chain for use, losing the binds that had once been in her hair in the process. As the skeletons began reaching their hideous fingers toward her, she knew that the ties would be the least of her worries.
Seven technically perfect chain swings destroyed the three celestial bears in the large, circular room. Their ethereal remains momentarily splayed outward from the center of force that had removed them- the panting, alabaster-skinned male whose barbed chain had been the end of more than eighty such victims since he had made the mistake of attempting to surprise what he'd thought would have been an arch mage.
Emnech, the true controller, lounged regally in an elegantly carved stone throne atop a candle-lit dais and laughed triumphantly, as though his adversary were handing him a victory. His pet cleric, who sat like an abused puppy at the end of a chain that sported thick studs, closed his eyes as though it would wipe away the scene before him.
"Well done!" the undead warrior exulted. "Fabulously well done- what's his name again, Baruk?"
"Timoteus," the Human male repeated for the fifth time. With fresh, radiant robes, clean hair and clear eyes, it was difficult to tell that he was a prisoner. But the chains that bound him to the foot of the throne and the defeated posture certainly helped.
"The cleric you think you see is dead," the fighter replied breathlessly, standing upright with some effort. "I am Vhalan."
Enmech raised a vaguely interested eyebrow at Baruk, then turned his gaze back to the vampire before him. As he did, a distant clatter arose from the floor below them. The hound, who had been smacked to one of the nine stone pillars around the room by one of the bears, picked his head up with a weak whine of recognition. Vhalan shot a look to his right, where the stairwell ended, but didn't move any other muscle. Still, the controller sensed a sudden seriousness that had not previously registered in the master chain fighter.
"Who have we, Baruk? Another of my kind, or of yours?"
With a sigh, the elder cleric got up from the cold stone and moved toward a wooden table, upon which sat a large bowl of water. He stared into it for a few moments, whispering to it gently, then turned back toward the creature that held the other end of his chain.
"It's either a Semmite or a true Shadovar- a female- quite alive," he began wearily. "She slings a chain about, like Timo-"
"Vhalan," the vampire corrected with narrowed eyes.
"Brother Timoteus," Baruk finished sternly, glaring at Vhalan. "She must have followed him."
"Oooh, how interesting," Enmech smiled a little too sweetly. Vhalan could feel himself bristling, even though he knew full well that he was swallowing the emotional equivalent of a worm on a fishing hook. Niku got up from the floor and began turning himself in circles around a pillar- it wasn't quite clear to Vhalan whether the hound was checking for damage or deciding whether or not to leave the unnatural male who had commanded his company.
"A living vassal- have you trained her to allow you to feed?" Enmech asked lightly, as if encouraging a friend to share a recipe. "She's fond of you, obviously- very fond, to find a way to follow you here."
"There is a certain... an infantile... loyalty," Vhalan began grimly, inexplicably irritated at Enmech's question. Niku stopped turning in circles and instead bounced a few steps in one direction, then a few in the other- absolutely useless motion that ground on the chainmaster's nerves.
Baruk, who was ruddy by nature, seemed paler than Vhalan remembered him. Yet his lighter countenance rapidly darkened at his former compatriot's words. "Timoteus has a way with the weaker vessels. They were always his downfall, and he was always-"
"I did no worse to any of them than did you and your bloodless, oppressive brethren," Vhalan shot back venomously. "And look- all your precepts and mandates and regulations did nothing to save anyone- look! Cuthbert's ringmaster, brought a mere breath away from being vampire's thrall!"
Baruk allowed his time-weighted face to fall back toward the bowl of holy water before him, but the controller crowed immediately.
"I may not be what you expected, dear brother, but I am quite persuasive," he smiled radiantly as he shifted himself in his throne and moved the end of chain from the throne's locked hook to the metal cuff on his wrist. A simple snap gave Baruk just enough of a threat to stand straight before his shallow pool of holy water. "I imagine my methods aren't foreign to you- though I will admit that your admirably athletic shape alone may be enough to lure some sweet wenches into your arms."
"My prowess did not change," Vhalan chuckled bitterly. "Since my thirteenth year, if I cared to, I could claim as many willing consorts as I desired. I gladly broke the vows of sworn virgins on their own altars-"
"Which is what landed you in the monastery in the first place," Baruk snorted through grit teeth. "The Saint save your wicked, sanguine soul..."
Enmech, who sensed the edge of conflict within the vampire before him, sat forward in his throne to clap lightly. "And now, here we are! Bravo! No wonder you're so diligently sought out."
"You should be dead, Timoteus!" Baruk exclaimed, staring back down at the water as he spoke. Niku finally stopped moving and stared holes into the cleric, growling. "In pieces, burned, sown into a barren field somewhere, you prideful, lustful-"
"Quiet, Baruk," Enmech reprimanded, turning a casual glance over his shoulder at the furious cleric.
"Monsterous-" Baruk continued, completely ignoring the creature that held the other end of his barbed chain.
"And whose fault is that, brother, that I am made monster?" Vhalan demanded with a fury that forced his voice to contract into a whisper. Beyond him, the hound's growls degenerated into confused whines. "Who did not finish their duty, their calling, their goddamned holy quest, issued by the remorseless mouth of the stone-cold Saint himself!"
"That wicked bone rattler, into whose lap you crawled like a shameless whore-"
A furious, fang-baring hiss sharply escaped Vhalan, which Enmech reacted to at once.
"Silence!" the enthroned controller commanded, loudly enough for his voice to echo ominously down the winding stair beyond Vhalan. "I won't have you antagonizing our guest." A savage tug on the barbed collar brought the yelping cleric down on his backside, and with a few more good yanks, Baruk scrambled to return to his place next to the throne. Satisfied, Enmech reattached the end of the chain to the throne's lock, and rested a much calmer gaze upon Vhalan, who could hardly conceal his still-boiling fury.
"I see that you've nursed a bitterness for this meat over time, Vhalan. Yet, it seems you consort with a Human mage- and your original goal was to take from me a mortal no better than the one I hold here. If I may ask, what endears these other mortals to you?"
Vhalan snorted- a sound so sharp that it surprised both Enmech and Baruk. Beyond the stalemated vampire, the hound suddenly shot up and darted out of the room. Somehow, in the way that the red-stained brown eyes cut in his direction, Enmech found his answer. And he grinned as though this were an opportunity even greater than any Vhalan had yet presented him.
"Ah, I'd forgotten your darling little thrall. She will die well, Vhalan- if you can stand to let her."
Silveredge had managed to strangle the fledgeling necromancer who'd been responsible for the skeletons, but was completely surprised by a much more accomplished mage. Armed with a rod, the apprentice necromancer summoned four shamblers that rapidly reminded Silveredge a little too sharply of being overpowered in the woods- until a blur of fur suddenly slammed itself into one of the creatures so hard that it smacked into its undead companion.
"Niku!"
As if empowered by Silveredge's recognition, the short haired hound began not only simply ramming himself into the creatures around her, but using his forepaws to rip into their rotten flesh. With the bit of space that his attacks offered her, Silveredge darted forward and attacked the mage responsible. The mage easily whispered some word that stunned her, causing her chain to clatter to the ground.
Vhalan frowned, uncertain of what the clanking sound below the room meant. He knew that Baruk could do little spiritual harm to the utterly subservient and neutral Silveredge, but the idea of Silveredge getting anywhere near Enmech turned his stomach. In the middle of these thoughts, he barely detected the gentle brush of a spell on his mind.
"No, Baruk," he warned bitterly. "You couldn't break a young mortal spirit even in the very chapel of Cuthbert; what hope have you now, so far from your charms and sacred pools?"
"It wasn't meant to break you, per se," Enmech smiled gently. "It was meant to redirect your attention- which it did, didn't it?"
Vhalan rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his voice now an aggravated groan. "You sit chained to something that Cuthbert utterly despises. Yet, he does nothing to save you- does nothing to destroy that which binds you. Curse the blighter, and let him answer your soul."
"I see it now," Baruk began, looking down at his robes. "I'm here for your redemption's sake. Truly Saint Cuthbert has sought you out, and has placed me here to-"
"Don't overestimate yourself," Vhalan laughed derisively. "Even if it were that Cuthbert 'placed' you here specifically to intercept my 'fallen' soul, he can rest assured that I will not return to a god who makes living bait out of his followers in the attempt to resolve a problem that should have instead been prevented entirel-"
And at that moment, there was a sudden shatter- the unmistakable sound of splintering glass.
Silveredge jumped at the sound herself, at first- until she realized what it was that had broken. In the large shards of glass that had fallen from the mage's open bag, Silveredge could see the fractured reflection of an all-too-familiar Shadar-kai. She stood, staring down at the image, and all seemed still and quiet as she did so. Then, the image began attempting to communicate. Silveredge stood still for a while, watching the slender lips move and the brow begin to furrow, then allowing her hands to come slowly to her hips.
"The mistress might forgive the vessel, who doesn't feel compelled to do anything she demands," she smiled gently. "It is truly most unfortunate that her beautiful voice cannot here be heard." In the mirror, the image stopped trying to speak and stared at Silveredge with a withering fury. Niku pushed his head into Silveredge's leg, and when she looked down at him, she noted that he carried the second mage's rod in his mouth.
"An excellent idea." Silveredge bent down to get the rod away from Niku, but the hound playfully sat back with his broad chest nearly touching the ground, waving his stubby tail high in the air. The Shadar-kai didn't understand at first, and felt utterly confused as she tried to snatch the rod over and over, only to have Niku dodge to one side or another. When he darted all around her, rubbed the backs of her legs, then darted back away from her to sit back and tease her again, she began to catch on.
"Come on,"she encouraged with a weary smirk. "Let me have it. I don't happen to know how many mages there are, or if there are more scrying mirrors like this somewhere."
With a high whine of resignation, Niku allowed Silveredge to get the rod out of his mouth. In return, Silveredge surprised the hound with a kiss firmly planted between his eyes. After a few moments of excited panting, Niku hopped up on his hind legs, resting his fore paws on Silveredge's thighs, and licked her mouth. His breath was hardly better than it was when she first met him on the beach, yet the Shadar-kai realized the gesture for what it was- even when the hound's dismount tore her dark breeches to reveal flashes of periwinkle skin beneath. With a shrug, Silveredge turned to the more serious business at hand.
"What could they possibly be doing down there?" Enmech asked, amused. "Baruk, go check, won't you?"
"And so you will be commanded, like some idiot pet, to go, to come, to fetch, to sit?" Vhalan sighed, completely exasporated by Baruk's wordless compliance. "Wretched fool- I tell you again, curse Cuthbert and let him respond! If he cares at all, let him bathe the place in brimstone and destroy all those against whom his wrath is set at once."
Baruk walked all the way to the pool and looked into it, speaking his words to it very quietly. At his neck, the results of his disobedience were deepening into bruises, and the stink of fear about him was so pungent that Vhalan felt acid rise into his throat. "The mirror- she's shattered it. And thrown the summoning rod into a fire."
"Oh?" Enmech mused, looking at Baruk for a brief moment. "Well, well, that is interesting. Two apprentices killed- the little dear must mean business."
"She's set the dog off," Baruk reported sharply.
"She means to find you," Enmech smiled brightly to Vhalan. "Well done indeed, to have her so well trained! Give me time, and you'll see me do the same to both of the mortal creatures in my possession."
"Wait-" Baruk said wonderingly. "she's disappeared. The dog I see, but she-"
Vhalan closed his eyes, feeling his body shudder as though he'd been hit with the worst of turning spells.
He knew exactly where she was.
Niku, who wasn't very good at stealth, remained at the bottom of the steps as he'd been asked. His mouth lolled open, tongue draped over one side, and he panted eagerly. Silveredge, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the shadows that reigned in the stairwell that separated her from Vhalan. She had believed that having Niku lick the wounds she received would keep the battle-warmed vampire from smelling the blood that seemed beyond his ability to resist, but just one glance at him from the shadows between the pillars in the room solved that false hope. She bit her lips, unsure of what to do next.
"Oh, Baruk, don't fear," some rich, low male voice was saying. Silveredge moved silently with her back pressed to the cold stone of the huge, circular room until she could see the source. "She's here. I know she's here. And you do too, don't you?"
A pale skinned male- possibly as Human as Vhalan- with close-cut raven hair and sharp, wolfish features in his face sat upon a throne sporting a chain that fastened a richly robed slave of some sort. It was confusing, to see a slave that seemed better dressed than his darkly-clothed master, but the fact that the pale Human was in control of the master's end of the chain put the matter beyond doubt for the Shadar-kai.
"Her scent is absolutely unique," the male marveled, possessed of a pleasure so similar to Vhalan's that Silveredge almost cried. "So delicate, so- enticing. How could anyone resist it?"
Vhalan said nothing. From her hiding place behind him, Silveredge watched his fingers begin to curl.
"Haven't you tasted her?" came the gentle question. There was no hint of taunt in it, yet every fiber in Vhalan's being screamed to Silveredge of his insult, his mounting fury that he struggled to keep separate from the ever-present, mindless hunger. "She's so pliable, so delectably servile- so welcoming. I envy you, Vhalan. While I must chain and lock up my prey, yours flings herself into danger to aid you- to serve you- to feed you."
"Timoteus," another voice chimed in suddenly. Silveredge's eyes darted back to the chained slave, shocked that he dared to speak when not yet addressed. "Think of the women who trusted you, only to have their virtues and lives ripped away. Think of the hangings and stonings you caused!"
If the slave were attempting to charm or admonish Vhalan out of turning around, pinpointing her location and sucking the life from her bones, he wasn't achieving his intent, Silveredge knew. The edges of the chainmaster's lips twitched very slightly.
"I smell... concern- she's worried for you!" the other male chuckled, his voice filled with strange admiration. "She must see you shaking with hunger. If you bid her come to you, will she do it? Would she kneel before you, offer you any part of her you wish- oh, if I were only so fortunate- and I do wish to actually see the creature. What mortal could be so absolutely- dare I say it- enchanting?"
"Another soul!" the slave shouted, the intended plea sounding more like a condemnation. "Who trusts you to do what's right- for whatever you've become, remember what true esteem for your fellow creature was!"
"Bid me... remember," Vhalan managed in a choked voice that made Silveredge's stomach lurch perilously. "What you... never knew."
Silveredge bent down and laid her chain on the floor, then quickly pushed her fingers into her hair to undo the tight braids that had indeed not moved a single inch, though half of them were drenched with sweat and speckled with blood. As soon as she was done, she stepped out of the shadows, shaking out her hair and moving her fear-weighted legs forward by sheer force of will. She forced herself to stare directly at the creature that was sitting on the stone throne- the creature that, because of Vhalan, she could recognize for what it was without doubt. Vhalan hissed like a striking snake when she walked by, but she remained focused, walking directly up the dais. When the chainmaster actually moved toward her, a familiar jag of fur smacked into his side with a force that took him down to the floor with a mighty thump.
Silveredge knelt before the wide-eyed vampire, looking down at the floor. Knowing it would not be long before Vhalan somehow overpowered Niku, she reached across herself and pulled her wavy silver hair back behind her, revealing her neck.
Words seemed unnecessary. The vampire arose from his seat as though under a spell, coming forward slowly to claim his prey. Silveredge bit her lip hard, then looked up as close to the male's eyes as she dared as she put her hands near him as though she would lay them on his hips. Sure enough, a high pitched, canine cry of pain arose from behind her. Silveredge withdrew her hands, ducked down and rolled out of the way just in time to see a blinding white dire wolf throw himself at the offending vampire. She felt the cold metal key in her left hand and clutched it tightly, hoping to dodge around the fight and get to Svaentok's prison just beyond. But instead, she was grabbed by the slave, whose master hadn't remembered to restrain him properly.
"Give it! Give it to me!" he cried frantically, pawing at her body so forcefully that Silveredge at first didn't know how to respond. He realized that the key was in her hand just a moment after Niku realized that he was attacking her, and unfortunately for the slave, Niku made good on his realization first, clamping his sturdy jaws down on a good portion of the slave's fine robes and savagely yanking back on them. The slave choked, since his neck was suddenly constrained by his finery, and staggered backward with a hateful look on his face. Silveredge, wanting to get away before anyone else could discover what she'd done, breathed out and closed her eyes, calling upon the basic magic that her mother had taught her almost as soon as she could walk on her own two feet.
And Baruk, whom she'd thought a slave, watched her solid form step back into a shadow behind her, then disappear. On his right, the white dire wolf that had suddenly appeared struggled no longer with Enmech, but instead with an absurdly large, midnight black bat. He looked frantically around, but was so pulled and tugged at by the hound behind him that he only noticed the hazy, ethereal figure of the young Shadar-kai female after it had already reached the door behind the dais. Soon after he noticed this, some strange and unholy transformation happened off to his right, and Enmech stood a man again- without his master key. Before he even prepared to tug at the chain, Baruk had already summoned a celestial bear. The hound stopped messing with his robes and leaped after the bear at once; predictably, after swatting the smaller creature toward a pillar, the bear soundly attacked the dire wolf with both tooth and claw. What was unexpected was the ferocity of the white wolf, who energetically whipped around to pay the bear three times the pain it had just suffered. The bear was shredded to nothing in a scant five minutes- hardly enough time for Enmech to calm himself- but when the fight was over, the dire wolf received a sound kick in the belly from the barely-recovered chain rattler. The wolf dropped and tumbled, somehow on its way de-evolving into the sprawling, bloody, Human-like form of Vhalan, who for a few daring moments did not move at all.
From the top of the straight set of stairs that led directly down to Svaentok's cell, Silveredge had the advantage of seeing the third apprentice before she could see- or even smell- her. The Shadar-kai knew that this was an accomplishment, considering the pallor of the female's skin and the unmistakable red cast in her eyes. Silveredge remained spectral and smoky for as long as she could, sticking to the shadows to make her detection even more difficult, but the die was cast when she attempted to pass right in front of the apprentice to get the key into the lock. The fixture was visible, of course, and even worse, gave off a horrible squeal as it turned. Svaentok himself, whose dark robes had temporarily been cast aside for whatever reason, quickly bounded forward, surprising Silveredge enough to send her back a step. That step was costly, since the apprentice took full advantage, taking a fistful of Silveredge's hair and yanking her down to the ground.
While most attackers would have thought of somehow debilitating their foe, this creature seemed far too pressed for that precaution. She at once descended upon Silveredge, pinning her hands back and pressing herself close to the light blue-hued neck. Unable to think of anything else, Silveredge put as much force as she could into a headbutt, which did nothing but make the receiver laugh. Just at that moment, something black whipped between Silveredge and the attacker, and Silveredge found her hands freed. She sat up in time to watch Svaentok one-handedly whip the apprentice around his left side and into the bars of his cage with the torn sleeve of his robe. The creature smacked against the bars with a sickening clank and sunk to the ground, but Svaentok likewise wavered with the strength that his effort stole from him. Silveredge looked around herself quickly, searching for anything that would be helpful, but only saw a rod similar to the one she'd earlier thrown into a fire. Determined not to let the creature rise again, Silveredge stepped past Svaentok with the rod in hand and began pummeling the apprentice with it as though it were a club. As she lashed out again and again, Svaentok picked himself up and moved beyond her, as though he were going up to the circular room. Silveredge paused then, standing back to look at her work.
The thing certainly looked dead, with both eyes swollen absolutely shut, two teeth knocked out and the windpipe all but smashed. Yet somehow, in just a few moments of silence, the wounds began to slowly repair themselves before Silveredge's eyes.
"Move," came the command from behind her.
Silveredge dodged to her right at once, every muscle in her body responding to one of the true tiarnaí daor. And Svaentok, with a rusted iron sword in hand, marched up to the healing creature, drew back his right hand as though he would slap her, and instead took the head clear from her shoulders. Silveredge put her hands to her mouth in surprise, although she immediately felt silly for somehow feeling this death more frightening than the others that she herself had caused. Svaentok drew back his arm again, and plunged it into the creature's chest, rocking and twisting the sword in the flesh until rivers of blood poured from around it.
"I may have struck the heart," he breathed, winded. "I may not have. We shouldn't stay to find out."
"Is she-" Silveredge began uncertainly.
"She's at least delayed," Svaentok replied with a weary smirk. "But I have seen her recover from lesser attempts- my own attempts, actually- looking as whole as you saw her first. I could but hold her back, and I assume that I've done no more this time. Where is Brother Vhalan, and the pup? I have heard all three of you."
"My master will forgive his vessel if she must confess that she knows where Brother Vhalan is, but now how he is?"
"Only if you help me get him out of this place," Svaentok managed. "There's a halberd- about as bad off as that sword- standing in a cabinet just inside the entrance- let me have it, but don't trust too fully in what power Vhalan and I still have. Both of us, without doubt, will need the warrior in you to show herself."
Silveredge turned around to fetch the weapon, which was half-wrapped in spider webs and sported a blood-stained, rusted blade. When she returned with it, she saw that Svaentok had laid his head down on the table where the apprentice had been sitting. His upper body was laced with fresh, puckering wounds, some of which were so recent that it seemed as though he should still be leaking blood.
"Vhalan will go mad to smell so much pain," Silveredge offered, holding the halberd in front of her.
Svaentok answered before he raised himself up, and most of his volume was eaten by the table. "He was blood-starved when he arrived. That's why the beast Enmech taunts him to join in the cause, instead of courting defeat in plain combat."
"He won't have him," Silveredge whispered resolutely, looking over her shoulder and as far up the stairs as she could. Svaentok, pleased, yet still surprised at the force of her conviction, sat up and looked at her, then stood. With a deep breath, he took firm hold of the halberd and moved up the hall toward the stairs.
Vhalan returned to his senses when Niku whined directly into his ear. With a wince, he pulled his head to one side, then noticed that he was lying on his back on the stone floor. Somewhere, somewhere close, Svaentok was free. For a few moments, Vhalan felt a craving to leap up and find him- his whole body ached with a maddening hunger. One that throbbed stronger and stronger with every passing moment.
"What majestic vaulted ceilings," he croaked, finding himself inexplicably hoarse.
"I'm glad you've had a chance to notice," Enmech replied in a strained tone that implied some discomfort. Vhalan turned his head to see that the male sported huge gashes in his belly that were slow to pull themselves back together. Some distance away, Baruk was glaring at him, his robes nearly in shreds. As stricken as he himself was, Vhalan could not help but laugh. Enmech turned to see what Vhalan was looking at, then began to sputter chuckles himself.
"Why the glower?" Vhalan offered at last, closing his eyes. "Such opulence... in a priest... is unseem-"
Niku picked up his head, sniffed the air, then darted off toward the back of the room. Vhalan groaned quietly- a deep-voiced, unearthly sound that made Baruk's skin crawl. At first, both Enmech and Baruk were confused at what they had heard and witnessed, but when the dog tore back through the room with the abandoned spike chain, Enmech pulled Baruk's chain tight at once.
"Now, while he is unable to defend them, send your creatures after his pets!" he hissed. "Draw their blood."
Baruk halted, and his hesitation was met with a snap of the chain, which was pulled so tight around his neck that it caused the cleric to squeal slightly.
"Baruk!" Vhalan cried bitterly as his eyes bolted open to stare at the ceiling. His breath came in pants, as though he were being drowned in the air around him. "You... defend one... abomination... against another. You claim... eternal life, yet... fear to die. I have... always... had every right to... think you... worthless... a poorly minted copper."
Baruk and Enmech both stared at Vhalan, who stared resolutely at the ceiling as though he could will it to crash down upon him.
"Go to the hells," Baruk managed at last, his flat whisper nearly dying in the air before reaching Vhalan's ears at all.
"Did my lord not wonder if I would come and give myself to Elder Vhalan?" came a light feminine voice from beyond the throne.
"Fear... courage," Vhalan hissed through clamped teeth, talking directly to the ceiling with both fists clenched. "So... near.. should not... be so..."
"Let calm fill you," Svaentok managed from somewhere- the intended recipient of the strange benediction was unclear. It seemed to the twitching chain master that the voice was everywhere and nowhere at once. The calm of which it spoke, however, was revoltingly impossible- Vhalan's nerves lit up with pain that had nothing to do with his physical injuries, and he closed his eyes in the attempt to prevent it from growing.
"I did," Enmech smiled, feeling himself quite whole. "Though I was rewarded with violence for my curiosity."
Silveredge walked out from behind the throne with her upper body bowed, not speaking a word. Enmech, helplessly interested in this apparent donation of blood, began a soft, encouraging hissing.
Baruk glanced about him, from the monster he knew to the monster he didn't, and at what he could see of the two Shadar-kai. The vampire who held his chain obviously thought it useful to have a pet cleric; while he could fear being seriously hurt, there was no pressing threat of death. Neither of the Shadar-kai had anything to do with him, but they apparently had everything to do with the embittered former cleric who lay shaking on the floor. More concerned about Vhalan's revenge than anything else, Baruk sat on the dais and pinned his attentions to him.
"A credit to your race and gender," the vampire soothed, moving toward her like a stalking cat as he spoke. "You don't know how I suffered with your kinsman. Lady Esvele had wanted to simply crush him, but I had hoped there might be another way. The scourging, the fighting, the starving- it broke my heart. I wished only to uplift the crude mortal- to elevate him from the primal beast he is to the dominating force that he can become!"
By the time Enmech had finished these words, Svaentok had managed to make it to Vhalan, whose tremblings had become visible tremors that rippled through his body.
"Speak to me, brother," Svaentok urged, though his voice was dry and breaking. "Assure me that you have your sense, or I will assume that you don't." When Vhalan merely hissed through his teeth, refusing to open his eyes again, Svaentok readied his halberd.
Enmech reached forward and gently brushed Silveredge's cheek, then swept his hand down the left side of her neck, moving her hair as he did. "I hadn't planned on you, little one," he smiled, bringing her closer to him by applying pressure to the nape of her neck. "Yet, you interest me so. What shall I do- shall I allow you to remain as pitiful livestock? Or shall I uplift you- baptize you with my blood, and watch you grow into a glorious huntress?"
"My lord shall do what he wishes, when he wishes, and to whom he wishes," Silveredge replied, taking one knee slowly. Niku, who had been sitting behind the throne, suddenly popped to his feet and trotted toward Silveredge, who turned her head slightly and allowed her still-lowered eyes to travel off to her right. "His vessel shall humbly do what little she can to ensure that he emerges victorious."
Vhalan pushed every puff of breath out of his body in one long steady stream just as Niku calmly strolled over to him and climbed on top of his chest. As the hound sat down and laid his head atop his paws, Svaentok stole a glance at Silveredge.
It was fortunate, since he would be the only witness of her next action.
Laying back gorgeously, Silveredge swept her left leg around and caught Enmech in the ankle, whipping part of her chain out from between her arms in the process. Enmech crumpled slightly, but did not fall, and his softened features suddenly darkened with an intense rage. Silveredge rolled over just in time to avoid a plunging hand, and got to her knees first, then to her feet as Enmech reacted to smashing his hand into the floor. Two good turns pulled the chain into a striking speed, but Enmech disappeared in a mist, leaving Silveredge to look around herself, confounded. Svaentok picked up the halberd again, backing away from Vhalan slowly to take in as much of the room as he could. Niku, suddenly jitterly, hopped off Vhalan's chest and bolted for the back of the room, which gave Svaentok the impression that the active vampire was still somewhere near the throne. He hadn't considered that Niku might have been reacting to the vampire underneath him.
Vhalan pooled his hunger and frustration, his form flickering between his wolfish self and his human form. Baruk, whose skin was prickling, quickly rushed at Silveredge again, not knowing that she had left the master key in the lock of the cell where Svaentok had been. Silveredge noted his charge and simply stepped to one side, leaving Baruk to stagger for a few moments. Meanwhile, Enmech materialized at the far right side of the room, and Vhalan, suddenly kipping up from the floor, rushed at Enmech with unearthly speed. In mere seconds, he had choked Enmech, holding him up by his neck. Silveredge began to whip her chain up to attacking speed, but Baruk charged again, this time going for her lower body. Before he could get within five paces of her, Vhalan dropped Enmech, whirled around, and darted toward Baruk, catching him by the throat and slamming him into the floor hard enough to make the stone crack. The cleric wasn't certain whether Vhalan actually spoke or whether his mind alone willed the word into existence, but he heard a blood-curdling-
"Mine!"
Svaentok, far less concerned about Baruk's fate than about Silveredge's, stepped back into the shadows of the pillars and began to move carefully toward the gasping Enmech. Silveredge bounded forward, preparing herself for a mid-distance fight, and managed to wind her chain around the creature's neck. She pulled that side of the chain taut by turning her waist into it while she whipped the other end of the chain over her head for additional speed before smacking the largest end spikes into Baruk's face. The vampire, with one eye deeply gouged and the cheek below it pierced clear through, grabbed hold of the chain and ripped it violently straight out of his face. He curled the chain around his hand, and as he did, the grotesque wounds in his face began to rapidly heal.
Silveredge, realizing that he meant to trap her in her own weapon, ran straight at him with all her speed, then leaped up, planting one foot on his shoulder to get all the way over him. She pulled both ends of the chain along with her, and while the spikes buried themselves into his shoulders, he stood firm, which caused her to jerk to a halt on the other side of him. He ducked down and turned, freeing himself from the chain's grasp, leveling a cruel smile at the panting Shadar-kai. Just as before, the jagged holes that the spikes left in his flesh began healing the minute the spikes were pulled out, leaving perfect skin under the holes in the clothing.
"All this activity will make your sweet blood warm!" Enmech laughed. "I won't drink it all at once- I shall bind you up with your own little toy, and have you sit on my lap for a long, long while."
Silveredge stood looking at the vampire, momentarily absolutely lost for ideas. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spied the slow-moving Svaentok advancing on her left side. She pivoted, then darted to her right in the attempt to run the chain around the pillar nearest to her. Enmech was moved one single step.
"You only make this easier," Enmech explained with a grin. "You are wearied by your frantic effort, like a deer before a wolf."
Silveredge glared straight into Enmech's face with a frustration so palpable that Svaentok almost stopped moving. Leaning over, she tore at her skin with the closest spike on her chain, smacked her fingers into the resulting blood, and drew a hasty, messy circle about her. This done, she flopped down on her behind, crossed her arms in front of her and bowed her head. Enmech moved forward, finally uncoiling the chain from his neck and wrapping his hand in it so that he had full control of both ends of her weapon. He managed to get within one step of her blood circle before she threw back her head and both arms with a full-voiced holler that made the creature stagger backward. Briefly and inexplicably, outstretched raven's wings appeared at her back, then disappeared as quickly as they had manifested. Infuriated by this, Enmech attempted to step over the edge of the circle to grab her neck, but was thrown two steps backward onto his own behind. Silveredge drew one of her hands back and willed a ball of ice into her hand, slinging it at Enmech's surprised face without compunction. He was knocked back flat, but the cold of the ice- of course- did him no damage at all.
"And what had you expected to do, but delay the inevitable?" Enmech asked, sitting up again immediately.
"She didn't delay it."
Svaentok cracked Enmech across the back of his head with the butt end of the halberd with such force that the dry rotted wood splintered. Grasping what remained of it strongly, the Shadar-kai drove the spike of the halberd straight into Enmech's heart, twisting and yanking at it until there were only a few sliced slivers of meat where the beating muscle once lay. This done, he pulled the spike free, flipped the halberd so that the axe blade was at the ready, and cut Enmech's head clear of his body.
"Get up and bring me the basin on the table," Svaentok commanded immediately.
Silveredge got up, wriggled out of her chain, then leaped up to the dais to take hold of the basin. As she returned, Niku tore up the side of the chamber toward her, nearly knocking her over in his zeal to get to her.
"Pour it here- in his mouth first, then his chest. Here, let me-"
Both Shadar-kai held the basin together, carefully tipping it so that they could get as much blessed water into the creature as possible. The head, though severed from the body, still managed to get out a burble of agony before the crimson eyes stared out into nothingness. Niku crept up carefully to sniff at it, then barked happily.
Svaentok stood straight and heaved a heavy sigh. "Then it's-"
"Dead."
Silveredge, forgetting the killed monster at once, left the basin in Svaentok's hands to rush to Vhalan. The chain master, whose weapon had been long abandoned at the center of the room, lay peacefully on his back, his eyes clear and bright. His breathing was regular, no part of him trembled, and he was in the process of sending his tongue around his mouth in the effort to clean the blood off. Silveredge put her hands over her mouth to smother the startled scream that wanted to escape when she looked from him over to the absolutely bloodless cleric who lay motionless next to him like a plague victim. In his chest was a hole that looked as though it had been ripped with bare hands, and his head was savagely snapped to one side. Svaentok, who ambled over to the scene as though it were nothing spectacular, chuckled softly.
"You didn't take the head off."
"Unnecessary," Vhalan breathed thickly. "I took his heart instead."
"You're that afraid of becoming a sire?" Svaentok joked. Silveredge stared at him, dumbfounded.
Vhalan, however, was extremely serious. "Yes."
Svaentok blinked, his head turning slightly in a show of curiosity. "You could have gotten away before he turned, and not all spawn seek to kill their sires."
"That he lived once was enough," Vhalan reasoned. "Why should I force someone to trouble themselves to blot out his mother's error again?" Svaentok offered his hand, but Vhalan sat up and rose on his own. "Put up your strength- I can tell there's not much left of it."
"That which remains must thank your student," Svaentok pointed out. "You should have seen what she tried in your name."
Vhalan looked at Silveredge, who dropped her gaze away from him, as habit dictated. "You came after me when I commanded you not to. Explain."
Silveredge paused for a few moments, biting her lip, then spoke softly. "The warrior left outside the walls commanded that I enter them. Since my lord had previously asked me how much I believed Elder Svaentok would want to fight him after receiving his freedom and I was not sure, I took the contradicting command as an opportunity to come and see."
"And what was the answer?" Vhalan asked, moving between the two Shadar-kai to retrieve his chain. Niku, dragging Silveredge's weapon, padded calmly across the floor to him, whining for a pat.
"Not at all," Silveredge replied, squatting down to welcome Niku into her arms. The large hound put his paws on one of her legs, forcing her to kneel in order to adjust to his weight. "My lord Svaentok may still have paused and tested even if had it become clear that you had joined our enemy's part."
"Foolhardy," Vhalan sighed.
"No, it wasn't, Vhalan," Svaentok replied strongly. "Now, let's all four of us be gone- together. You've got a distant cousin in the cells that might be regenerating as we speak."
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